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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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ShelfA^Vfe 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MISSIONARY ANNALS, 

Price per vol. cloth 30c, paper 18c. 



MEMOIR OF ROBERT MOFFAT 

BY MRS. M. L. WILDER. 



II. 

LIFE OF ADONIRAM JUDSON 

BY MISS JULIA H. JOHNSTON. 



III. 

WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA 

BY REV. THOMAS LAURIE, D.D. 



IV. 

LIFE OF REV. JUSTIN PERKINS, D.D. 

BY REV. HENRY MARTYN PERKINS. 



V. 

DAVID LIVINGSTONE 

BY MRS. J. H. WORCESTER, JR. 



VI. 

HENRY MARTYN AND SAM'L J. MILLS 

BY MRS. S. J. RHEA AND ELIZABETH O. STRYKER. 



OTHERS IN PREPARATION, SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. 



CHICAGO : 

Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions of the Northwest, 
Room 48, McCormick Block. 



MISSIONARY ANNALS. 

(A SEKIES 



THE LIFE OF 

DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



BY 

MRS. J. H WORCESTER, JR. 




CHICAGO: 

Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions of the Xorth'West, 
Voom 48, McCcrmick Block. 



Copyright, 1888, by the 
Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions 
of the Northwest. 



Printed by 
donohue & henneberry, 
Chicago. 



CONTENTS. 



Contents. Page. 

I. Early Life » 6 9 . . . . . „ 5 

II. KURUMAN TO KOLOBENG. . „ 12 

III. Conversion op Sechele 21 

IV. Difficulties and Discoveries 25 

V. Among the Makololo 31 

VI. Across the Continent 36 

VII. First Visit to England 42 

VIII. Expedition to the Zambesi. . 48 

IX. Death of Mrs. Livingstone 53 

X. The Slave Trade 58 

XI. Recall, and Last Visit to England 64 

XII. Search for the Nile Sources 70 

XIII. Meeting with Stanley 77 

XIV. The Last Journey 81 

XV. The Last Resting-Place 87 

XVI. Estimate of His Life-Work 91 

XVII. Livingstone as a Man 95 



CHAPTEE I. 



EARLY LIFE. 

DAYID LIVINGSTONE was born in Blantyre, Scotland, 
March 19th. 1813. His father and mother were peo- 
ple of lowly station, and he was reared in poverty. The 
story of his origin is briefly told in the simple inscription 
which he caused to be placed upon the monument to his 
parents, at a time when the highest in the land were show- 
ering compliments upon him. 

" To show the resting place of 

XEIL LmXGSTOXE, 

and Agnes Hunter, his wife, 
and to express the thankfulness to God 
of their children, 
John, David, Janet, Charles and Agnes, 
for poor and pious parents." 

An inscription whose last -deliberately chosen "and" he dis- 
tinctly refused to exchange for a " but." 

Both of Livingstone's parents were earnestly devout, the 
mother an active, sunny, loving woman, and the father, as 
David himself bore witness, of the high type of character por- 
trayed in the Cotters Saturday Night. Neil Livingstone 
was a strict teetotaler, a Suu day-school teacher, an ardent 
member of a missionary society, and a promoter of prayer- 
meetings, at a time when none of these things had ceased to 
be regarded as badges of fanaticism. While travelling 
through the adjoining parishes in his vocation of tea-mer- 
chant he often acted as colporteur, distributing tracts, and 

5 



6 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



showing in various ways that his was the true missionary 
spirit. 

The home in which David Livingstone grew up, although 
enriched by little beyond the bare necessaries of life, was 
brightened and made happy by industry, cheerfulness, love 
for one another, and faith in God. 

Of David's early boyhood we know little, except that he 
was a favorite at home, always contributing to the happiness 
of the family, and that he seems to have been from his earli- 
est childhood of a calm, self-reliant nature. It was his 
father's habit to lock the outer door at dusk, at which time 
all the children were expected to be in the house. One even- 
ing David found the door barred when he reached home. 
He made no outcry or disturbance, but sat down contentedly 
to pass the night on the doorstep. There, on looking out, 
his mother found him. It was an early application of the 
rule which did him such service later in life, to make the best 
of the least pleasant situations. As a proof of his persever- 
ance, we read that at the age of nine he received a New 
Testament from his Sabbath-school teacher for repeating the 
119th Psalm on two successive evenings, with only five 
errors. 

His parents were so poor that at the age of ten he was 
set to work in a factory. With a part of his first week's 
wages he purchased a Latin grammar. Though working 
from six in the morning until eight at night, with intervals 
only for breakfast and dinner, he attended an evening class 
from eight to ten, and pursued his studies with much enthu- 
siasm. Often, indeed, he continued his labors after reaching 
home, until midnight or later, unless his mother interfered. 
At the age of sixteen he was thus familiar with Yirgil and 
Horace, and many of the classical authors. In his reading 



LIFE OF DAVID LTTDsGST02sZ. 



7 



he devoured everything but novels, placing his book on a 
portion of the spinning-jenny, so that he could catch sentence 
after sentence as he passed at his work. The utmost inter- 
val that Livingstone could have had for reading at one time 
was less than a minute, but. as he afterwards writes : 

"I thus kept up a pretty constant study, undisturbed by 
the roar of the machinery. To this part of my education I 
owe my power of completely abstracting my mind from sur- 
rounding noise, so as to read and write with perfect comfort 
amidst the play of children or the dancing and songs of sav- 
ages/' 

Like other boys he was fond of play ana fun. but with 
?.. g: : wing thirst for knowledge. Books of travel and of sci- 
ence were his especial delight, and when a rare half -holiday 
came round he was usually to be found at the quarries col- 
lecting geological specimens, or by the hedge-rows gathering 
herbs and flowers. He early formed the opinion that a good 
herbalist has in his hands the panacea for all bodily diseases. 

David was not very fond of religious leading, and he tells 
us, with that quiet humor which never deserted him. that 
his last flo^im? was received for refusing to read "Wilber- 
force's Practical Christianity. This dislike continued for 
years, until he lighted upon Dick's Philosophy of P" - 
ion and Philosophy of a Future State, which he found, 
to his delight, enforced his own conviction that religion and 
science were friendly to each other. 

It was whde reading the last-named book that he became 
convinced that it was his duty and highest privilege to accept 
of Christ's salvation for himself. This was in his twentieth 
year. He had had many earnest thoughts about religion for 
years, but only now did the great spiritual change occur. 

•• This change." he says. was like what may be supposed 



8 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



would take place were it possible to cure a case of ' color- 
blindness.' The fullness with which the pardon of all our 
guilt is offered in God's book drew forth feelings of affec- 
tionate love to Him who bought us with His blood, which 
in some small measure has influenced my conduct ever 
since." 

" There can be no doubt that Livingstone's heart was 
very thoroughly penetrated by the new life that now flowed 
into it. He did not merely apprehend the truth. The truth 
took hold of him." 

Although at first he had no thought of becoming a mis- 
sionary himself, he made a resolution that, as the salvation 
of men ought to be the chief aim of every Christian, he 
would give to the cause of missions all that he could earn 
beyond what was required for his subsistence. It was about 
a year later that, after reading Dr. Gutzlaff's "Appeal" on 
behalf of China, he resolved to give himself to the work in that 
country. " The claims of so many millions of his feUow- 
creatures, and the complaint of the want of qualified men to 
undertake the task" were, as he informs us, the motives 
which led him to this high resolve ; henceforth his " efforts 
were constantly directed towards that object without any 
fluctuation." In addition to the necessary theological train- 
ing, he determined also to acquire that needed by a physi- 
cian. Though it was never his lot to exercise the healing art 
in China, his medical knowledge was of the highest use in 
Africa, and it developed wonderfully his strong scientific 
turn. 

While pursuing his medical studies in Glasgow it involved 
much self-denial on Livingstone's part to make the wages 
earned during the summer suffice for all his needs, and many 
less determined would have ended the struggle there and 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVIXG-STOXE. 



then. But Livingstone was made of different stuff, as these 
words of his, written years later, show : 

"Were I to begin life over again. I should like to pass 
through the same hardy training. I never received a far- 
thing from any one. and I should have accomplished my pro- 
ject of going to China as a medical missionary by my own 
efforts, had not some friends advised my joining the London 
Missionary Society, on account of its unsectarian character. 
It ( sends neither Episcopacy, nor Presbyterianism, nor Inde- 
pendency, but the gospel of Christ, to the heathen.' This 
exactly agreed with my ideas of what a missionary society 
ought to do ; but it was not without a pang that I offered 
myself, for it was not agreeable to one accustomed to work 
his own way to become in a measure dependent on others." 

Livingstone had already connected himself with the Inde- 
pendent, or Congregational Church. He had very strong 
views of the need of a deep, spiritual change as the only true 
basis of Christian life and character, and his preference for 
this branch of the church universal arose mainly from the 
feeling that the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and the 
Established Church in particular, were at this time too lax 
in their communion. But never was a man more free from 
sectarianism than he. 

It was in 1838 that Livingstone applied to the London 
Missionary Society, offering his services as a missionary, and 
his application was provisionally accepted. In September of 
that year he was summoned to London to meet the directors, 
and after passing two examinations he was sent to study 
with Bev. Richard Cecil, to whom most missionary students 
were sent for a three months' probation. One part of his 
duties was to prepare sermons, which, when corrected, were 
committed to memory and repeated to village congregations. 



10 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



Once Livingstone was sent for to preach in a neighboring 
pulpit, the pastor having been taken suddenly ill. He took 
his text, read it slowly, and then — all was a blank. E"ot a 
word could he remember of his carefully prepared sermon. 
Saying abruptly, " Friends, I have forgotten all I had to 
say," he hurried out of the pulpit and left the chapel. Owing 
to this failure and to general lack of fluency in prayer, an 
unfavorable report was sent in when the three months had 
elapsed ; but some one urged that he should have a still 
further probation, and a few months later he was accepted. 

It was a disappointment to him that he could not carry 
out his original intention of preaching the gospel in China, 
but the opium war had closed that country to the English, 
and while it continued no new appointments could be made. „ 
It was in these circumstances that he met Robert Moffat, 
who, after twenty-three years of labor in South Africa, was 
thrilling England with the story of his work and adventures 
there. He fired the soul of his young countryman with a 
desire to explore and evangelize that " dark continent " with 
which both their names are now identified. 

Under Moffat's influence, then, Livingstone determined to 
go at once to Africa, and in this decision the directors con- 
curred. Henceforth Africa was to be his sphere. 

It was felt that a medical diploma would be of service, 
and Livingstone received this in November, 1840. A single 
night was all he could spend with his family, and they had so 
much to talk about that David proposed they should sit up 
all night, though to this his mother would not listen. " I 
remember my father and him," writes his sister, " talking 
over the prospects of Christian missions. They agreed that 
the time would come when rich men and great men would 
think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries, 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



11 



instead of spending their money on hounds and horses. On 
the morning of 17th November we got up at five o'clock. 
My mother made coffee. David read the 121st and 135th 
Psalms, and prayed. My father and he walked to Glasgow 
to catch the Liverpool steamer." On the Broomielaw father 
and son looked on each other's faces for the last time on earth. 
The one walked slowly back to Blantyre, his heart full of 
mingling emotions of sorrow and joy. The face of the other 
was now set in earnest towards the "dark continent." 



12 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



CHAPTEE II. 

KXJRUMAN TO KOLOBENG-. 

OlST the 20th of November, 1840, Livingstone was ordained 
a missionary, and on December 8th he embarked for 
Algoa Bay. During the voyage his chief friend was the captain 
of the ship, who was very obliging, giving him all the informa- 
tion respecting the use of the quadrant in his power, and fre- 
quently sitting up till midnight for the purpose of taking 
lunar observations with him. Thus another qualification was 
acquired for Livingstone's peculiar life-work. His first letter 
to the directors of the London Missionary Society displayed 
his characteristic honesty, saying that he had spent most of 
his time at sea in the study of theology, and that he was 
deeply grieved to say that he knew of no spiritual good hav- 
ing been done in the case of any one on board the ship. 

After reaching Algoa Bay, Livingstone proceeded at once 
to Kuruman, in the Bechuana country, where he arrived in 
July, 1841. This was the most northerly station of the soci- 
ety in South Africa, being 700 miles north of Cape Town, 
and was the usual residence of Mr. Moffat, who was still 
absent in England. Livingstone's instructions were to remain 
there until Mr. Moffat's return, and turn his attention to the 
formation of a new station farther north. While awaiting 
more specific instructions he began to entertain the idea of 
going to Abyssinia. A Christian missionary was evidently 
needed there, for the country had none, but if he should go 
he felt that probably he should never return. We hear no 
more of the project, but writing of this to a friend, he uses 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



13 



these almost prophetic words : " Whatever v\ T ay my life may 
be spent as best to promote the glory of our gracious God, I 
feel anxious to do it. . . . My life may be spent as profit- 
ably as a pioneer as in any other way." 

After a short time spent in Kuruman, ne went to a spot 
where he secluded himself from all European society for about 
six months, in order to obtain a knowledge of the native 
tongue. Livingstone gained by this ordeal an insight into 
the habits, ways of thinking, laws and language of the Bak- 
wains, which proved of incalculable advantage in his inter- 
course with them ever after. 

Livingstone's life in Africa resolves itself into four distinct 
periods. First, that of ordinary mission work, upon which he 
was now entering ; second, that of the first great journey 
under the auspices of the London Missionary Society ; third, 
that of the exploration of the Zambesi at the head of a gov 
ernment expedition ; fourth, the journeys under the general 
direction of the Koyal Geographical Society. 

Soon after his arrival at Kuruman, Livingstone became 
convinced that there was not enough population at that point 
to justify a concentration of missionary labor there, and that 
efforts should be made speedily to reach the teeming multi- 
tudes in the interior. He also believed in making the utmost 
possible use of native agency in order to cultivate so wide a 
field. A journey of 700 miles, taken with a brother mission- 
ary, tended 'Strongly to confirm these views, and led to the 
selection of a station 250 miles north of Kuruman, which was 
not, however, entered upon until 1843. 

Before Livingstone had been a year in the country his 
power over the Africans was manifest. His fearless manner, 
his genial address, and his genuine kindness of heart, united 
to form a spell which rarely failed. His medical knowledge 



14 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



helped him greatly ; but for permanent influence all would 
have been in vain, had he not uniformly observed the rules of 
good manners, justice, and good feeling. 

Just a year after his arrival he writes to his father : " The 
work of God goes on here notwithstanding all our infirmities. 
Souls are gathered in continually, and sometimes from among 
those you would never have expected to see turning to the 
Lord. Twenty-four were added to the church last month, 
and there are several inquirers." 

Already Livingstone could preach in one dialect, and was 
learning another. His heart was full of the missionary spirit, 
but the activity of his mind enabled him at the same time to 
give attention to other matters. He had the rare faculty of 
directing his mind at the full stretch of its power to one great 
object, and yet, apparently without effort, giving minute 
attention to minor matters, all bearing, ho wever, on the same 
great end. In his missionary journeys he made the acquaint- 
ance of the two great foes of the explorer in Africa, fever 
and the venomous tsetse fly. Fever he considered the great- 
est barrier to the evangelization of the country, while the 
tsetse fly was the greatest enemy of beasts of burden, fre- 
quently destroying every ox in a team. Its sting, however, 
was comparatively harmless to men, or exploration would 
have been entirely out of the question. 

In 1843 Livingstone visited Sechele, chief of the Bak- 
wains, afterward one of his greatest friends. Sechele had 
been enraged at him for not visiting him when he had been 
in the vicinity the year before, and had threatened him with 
mischief. But when the missionary arrived his only child 
was ill, and also the child of one of his principal men. Under 
Livingstone's treatment both were restored to healthy and 
Sechele was thoroughly conciliated. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



15 



It was not until his return to Kuruinan from this journey, 
in June, 1843, that Livingstone at last found, to his great satis- 
faction, a letter from the directors authorizing the formation of 
a settlement in the regions be} r ond. He lost no time in open- 
ing a station at Mabotsa, a beautiful vailey surrounded by 
mountains. 

There was one drawback to the new locality; it was 
infested with lions. Here it was that the encounter with the 
lion occurred which came so near ending Livingstone's career. 
With characteristic modesty, writing to his father of this 
serious encounter, he says, after expressing his gratitude for 
God's mercy in sparing his life, " Do not mention this to any 
one. I do not like to be talked about." Yielding, however, 
to the solicitations of friends, Livingstone goes somewhat into 
details in his Missionary Travels. 

He says that the people were much troubled by lions, 
which attacked their cattle even in open day. Knowing that 
if one in a troop of lions is killed the rest leave that part of 
the country, he encouraged the natives to endeavor to destroy 
one of the marauders. He succeeded in shooting a lion him- 
self, but before he could load again the beast had sprung 
upon him. " The Hon caught me by the shoulder and we both 
came to the ground together. Growling horribly, he shook 
me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor 
similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after 
the first gripe of the cat. ... It was like what patients 
partially under the influence of chloroform describe ; they 
see the operation, but do not feel the knife. This placidity 
is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora, 
and if so, is a merciful provision of the Creator for lessening 
the pain of death." Mebalwe, one of the natives, endeavored 
to shoot the lion, which immediately left Livingstone to 



16 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



attack him, biting him in the thigh. Another man now 
attempted to spear the savage beast, which turned from 
Mebalwe to the new foe, when the bullets he had received 
took effect and he fell dead. Besides crunching the bones 
into splinters, eleven of his teeth had penetrated the upper 
part of Livingstone's left arm, which, being imperfectly set, 
was maimed for life. 

It is generally known that it was by the false joint in the 
broken arm that Livingstone's body was identified when 
brought back to England by his faithful followers ; but it is 
not as well known that Mebalwe, who saved his Life, was one 
of the native teachers that he himself had trained, and that 
it was a Christian lady in Scotland who contributed the 
money for this catechist's support. Little did she think that 
her gift of twelve pounds would indirectly be the means of 
preserving the life of Africa's greatest benefactor for the 
wonderful work of the next thirty years ! Mebalwe was still 
alive in 1881, a useful man, an able preacher, and one who 
had done much to bring his people to Christ. 

The next year saw Livingstone established in the new 
stone house of which he was both architect and builder, and 
happy in the companionship of his young bride, Mary 
Moffat, the eldest daughter of the missionary through whose 
influence he had come to Africa. From 1840 to 1845 he was 
employed in preparatory labors, and associated with other 
missionaries both at Kuruman and Mabotsa ; but it is melan- 
choly to read that from this first home and station of his 
own he was driven by the jealousy of a colleague, who was 
vexed at the attention attracted in England by Livingstone's 
missionary letters. But Dr. Livingstone's noble spirit rose 
to the occasion. Although feeling keenly the injustice done 
him, rather than have any scandal before the heathen he 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



IT 



would begin anew the toil of house and school building, and 
gathering the people about him. 

On leaving Mabotsa Livingstone transferred his services 
to the Bak wains, whose chief, Sechele, and his people, had 
expressed a strong desire to have a missionary reside among 
them. The new station of Chonuane, forty miles from Mabotsa, 
was chosen, but their residence here was of short duration. The 
want of rain was fatal to agriculture, and almost equally so 
to the mission. Dr. Livingstone had showed the chief that 
the only feasible way of watering the gardens was to select 
a site near some never-failing river, make a canal, and irrigate 
the adjacent lands. His wonderful influence over the tribe 
is apparent in the fact that the very morning after he had 
told them of his intention to move to Kolobeng, they 
were all preparing to go with him. There, besides making a 
canal, building huts, and making gardens, the}?' soon set about 
the erection of a school-house. This work, employing about 
200 of his people, was undertaken by Sechele. " I desire," 
he said, "to build a house for God, the defender of my town, 
and that you be at no expense for it whatever." At Kolo- 
beng Livingstone built his third house, where for the next five 
years he had his last home on earth. 

In his first book what he calls "a sketch of African 
house-keeping," is given as follows : 

" The entire absence of shops obhged us to make every- 
thing we needed from the raw materials. If you want bricks 
to build a house you must proceed to the field, cut down a 
tree, and saw it into planks to make the brick-moulds. The 
people cannot assist you much ; for, though willing to labor 
for wages, the Bakwains have a curious inability to make 
things square. As with all Bechuanas, their own dwellings 
are round. I erected three large houses at different times, 

2 



18 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



and every brick and stick had to be put square by my own 
hand. A house of decent dimensions, costing an immense 
amount of manual labor, is necessary to secure the respect of 
the natives. 

" Bread is often baked in an extempore oven, constructed 
by scooping out a large hole in an 'ant-hill, and using a slab 
of stone for a door. Another plan is to make a good fire on 
the ground, and when it is thoroughly heated to place the 
dough in a short-handled frying-pan, or simply on the hot 
ashes. A metal pot is then put over it, and a small fire is 
kindled on the top. 

" We made our own candles, and soap was procured from 
the ashes of the plant salsola, or else from wood ashes, 
which in Africa contain so little alkaline matter that the 
boiling of successive lyes has to be continued for a month or 
six weeks before the fat is saponified. 

" We rose early, because, however hot the day, the even- 
ing, night and morning atKolobeng weredeliciously refresh- 
ing. After family worship and breakfast between six and 
seven, we kept school, men, women, and children being all 
invited. This lasted till eleven o'clock. The missionary's 
wife then betook herself to her domestic affairs, and the 
missionary engaged in some manual labor, as that of a smith, 
carpenter or gardener. Dinner and an hour's rest succeeded, 
when the wife attended her infant school, which the young 
liked amazingly and generally mustered a hundred strong ; 
or she varied it with sewing-classes for the girls, which was 
equally well relished. After sunset the husband went into 
the town to converse, either on general subjects or on relig- 
ion. We had a public service on three nights of the week, 
and on another instruction on secular subjects aided by pict- 
ures and specimens. In addition to these duties we pre- 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



19 



scribed for the sick, and furnished food to the poor. The 
smallest acts of friendship, even an obliging word and civil 
look, are, as St. Xavier thought, no despicable part of the 
missionary's armor. Nor ought the good opinion of the 
most abject to be neglected when politeness may secure it. 
Their good word in the aggregate forms a reputation which 
procures favor for the gospel. Show kindness to the reck- 
less opponents of Christianity on the bed of sickness, and 
they can never become your personal enemies. Here, if 
anywhere, love begets love/' 

Again he writes : "A native smith taught me to weld 
iron, and having acquired some further information in this 
art as well as in carpentering and gardening from Mr. Moffat, 
I was becoming handy at most mechanical employments in 
addition to medicine and preaching. My wife could make 
candles, soap, and clothes ; and thus we had nearly attained 
to the indispensable accomplishments of a missionary family 
in Central Africa — the husband to be a jack-of-all trades 
without doors, and the wife a maid-of -all- work within." 

We can well realize that with the utmost frugality it was 
sometimes difficult to " make both ends meet," when we learn 
that until 1853 all the extra expenses of travelling, though 
for the wider diffusion of the gospel, were defrayed from his 
own meagre salary of £100 per annum. This salary would 
have enabled a missionary to live with tolerable comfort in 
the interior of South Africa provided he had a garden pro- 
ducing corn and vegetables, but otherwise the allowance was 
barely sufficient for the poorest fare and plainest apparel. 
Now the cost of missionary travels, the liberal gifts which 
had to be made to chiefs, the wants of an increasing family, 
(he had now four children, three boys and a girl,) added 
to the ordinary expenses of living, rendered the closest 



20 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



economy necessary, and of course they had many privations 
and trials. Yet theirs was truly a happy life notwithstand- 
ing. In reviewing this part of his career in Africa, Living- 
stone only regrets that he did not devote more time to play- 
ing with his children ; but our only wonder is that he could 
have found time to accomplish all that he did. It is not 
strange that, as he says, he was generally so exhausted by 
the mental and manual labor of the day, that in the evening 
there was no fun left in him. 



LITE OF DATED LIVINGSTONE. 



21 



CHAPTEE m. 

CONVERSION OF SECHELE. 

THE first fruit of Livingstone's missionary labor in this 
region was the conversion of Sechele, that chief of 
whom we have already heard. The little sketch of his life 
which follows is taken verbatim from Livingstone's Mission- 
ary Travels, though with some omissions : 

w I was from the first struck by his intelligence, and by 
the especial manner in which we felt drawn to each other. 
This remarkable man has not only embraced Christianity, but 
expounds its doctrines to his people. . . . On the first 
occasion in which I ever attempted to hold a public religious 
service, Sechele remarked that it was the custom of his nation 
to put questions when any new subject was brought before 
them. He then inquired if my forefathers knew of a future 
judgment. I replied in the affirmative, and began to describe 
the scene of the great white throne, and Him who shall sit 
on it, from whose face the heaven and earth shall flee away. 
' You startle me,' he replied ; 6 these words make all my bones 
to shake ; I have no more strength in me ; but my forefathers 
were hving at the same time yours were, and how is it that 
they did not send them word about these terrible things 
sooner ? They all passed away into darkness without know- 
ing whither they were going.' . . . 

"As soon as he had an opportunity of learning, he set 
himself to read with such close application that, from being 
comparatively thin, the effect of being addicted to the chase, 
he became corpulent from want of exercise. He acquired the 



22 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



alphabet on the first day of my residence at Chonuane, and I 
never went into the town but I was pressed to hear him read 
some chapters of the Bible. Isaiah was a great favorite with 
him, and he was wont to exclaim, ' He was a fine man, that 
Isaiah ; he knew how to speak.' 

" He seconded my anxiety that his subjects should become 
converts to Christianity, and said, 'Do you imagine these 
people will ever believe by your merely talking to them ? 1 
can make them do nothing except by threatening them ; and 
if you like, I shall call my head men, and with our whips of 
rhinoceros-hide we will soon make them all believe together.' 
The idea of using persuasion to subjects, whose opinion he 
would not have condescended to ask on any other matter, was 
especially surprising to him. He considered that they ought 
to be happy to embrace Christianity at his command. 

" He felt the difficulties of his situation, and often said, 
'Oh, I wish you had come to this country before I was entan- 
gled in the meshes of our customs ! ' In fact, he could not 
get rid of his superfluous wives without appearing to be 
ungrateful to their parents, who had done so much for him in 
his adversity. 

" In the hope of inducing others to accept his new faith, 
he asked me to have family worship in his own house. This 
I did, and by and by I was surprised to hear how well he 
conducted the prayer in his own simple and beautiful style, 
for he was a thorough master of his language. At this time 
we were suffering from the effects of a drought, which was 
ascribed by the natives to Christianity, and none except his 
family, whom he ordered to attend, came near his meeting. 
' In former times,' said he, ' when a chief was fond of hunting, 
all his people got dogs and became fond of hunting too. If 
he was fond of dancing or music, all showed a liking to 



LIFE OF DAVID LIV1XGSTOXE. 



23 



these amusements too. If the chief loved beer, they all 
rejoiced in strong drink. But in this case it is different. I 
love the Word of God, and not one of my brethren will join 
me.' 

" When he at last — in 1848 — applied for baptism, I asked 
him how, being acquainted with the Bible, he thought he 
ought to act. He went home and gave each of his super- 
numerary wives new clothing, together with all the goods 
they had been accustomed to keep in their huts for him. He 
then sent them to their parents with an intimation that he 
had no fault to find with them, but that he wished to follow 
the will of God. When he and his children were baptized, 
great numbers came to see the ceremony. Some thought 
from a stupid story which had been circulated by the enemies 
to Christianity in the South, that the converts would be made 
to drink an infusion of ' dead men's brains,' and were aston- 
ished to find that only water was used. Seeing several old 
men in tears during the service, I afterwards asked them the 
cause of then weeping. They were crying to see their father, 
as the Scotch remark of a case of suicide, ' so far left to him- 
self They seemed to think that I had thrown the glamour 
over him, and that he had become mine. All the friends of 
the divorced wives now became the opponents of our religion. 
The attendance at school and church dwindled down to very 
few besides the family of the chief. They all continued to 
treat us with respectful kindness ; but to Sechele himself they 
uttered things which, had they ventured on in former times, 
would, as he often remarked, have cost them their lives." 

Later we learn that Sechele himself had become a mis- 
sionary to his own people, and had considerable influence 
over them, though more in material than in religious matters. 
He was always a warm friend of missions, had a remarkable 



24 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



knowledge of the Bible, and could preach well. His regard 
for the memory of Livingstone was very great, and he read 
with earnestness everything that he could find about him. 
Notwithstanding that Sechele's efforts were not as successful 
as had been hoped, the results show that Livingstone had laid 
a good foundation. "That mission," writes Dr. Moffat in 
1874, "is the most prosperous, extensive, and influential of 
all our missions in the Bechuana country." 

In 1881 Sechele was still living, with the one wife whom 
he had retained, and though not without some inconsistencies 
of life — which Livingstone ascribed to the bad example set 
him by some — he still maintained his Christian profession. 
His people, being at some miles' distance from Kolobeng, had 
now a missionary station of their own supported by a 
Hanoverian Society. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



25 



CHAPTEE IT. 



DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOVERIES. 



OT only in these scenes of active missionary labor, but 



1 > wherever he was, Livingstone was in the habit of 
preaching to the natives, and talking with thern on religious 
topics, especially the love of Christ, the Fatherhood of God, 
the resurrection, and the last judgment. Dr. Moffat tells us 
that his preaching was simple, scriptural, interesting, very 
direct, and well suited to the capacity of the people. 

Livingstone never expected that the work of real Christi- 
anity would advance rapidty among the Bakwains, for they 
were a slow people and took long to move ; but it was not his 
desire to have a large church of nominal adherents. 
" Nothing " he writes, " will induce me to form an impure 
church. Fifty added to the church sounds fine at home, but 
if only five of these are genuine what will it profit in the 
Great Day ? I have felt more than ever lately that the great 
object of our exertions ought to be conversion." For two 
years he allowed no celebration of the Lord's Supper, 
because he did not deem the professing Christians to be living 
consistent lives. Here was a crowning proof of his hatred of 
all sham and his love for thorough, finished work. To his 
father he writes (July 5, 1848) : "For a long time I felt much 
depressed after preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ 
to apparently insensible hearts ; but now I like to dwell on 
the love of the great Mediator, for it always warms my own 
heart, and I know that the gospel is the power of God — the 
great means which He employs for the regeneration of our 
ruined world." 




26 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



Again he writes : " We have a difficult, difficult field to 
cultivate here. All I can say is that I think knowledge is 
increasing. But for the belief that the Holy Spirit works 
and will work for us, I should give up in despair. Remember 
us in your prayers, that we grow not weary in well-doing. 
It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the 
time be looked on by most of those to whom our lives are 
devoted, as having some sinister object in view. Disinter- 
ested labor — benevolence — is so out of their line of thought 
that many look upon us as having some ulterior object 
in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to 
copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He 
endured the contradiction of sinners. May we have grace 
to follow in His steps ! " 

One serious obstacle to the rapid spread of the gospel was 
the continued drought that followed the Bakwains even to 
Kolobeng. During two years the total amount of rain-fall 
was not more than ten inches, while there was an abundance 
of rain all around them. As the tribe had not suffered from 
successive droughts before the gospel was made known to 
them, it was natural that they should draw unfavorable 
inferences. 

In his Missionary Travels, Livingstone writes : " The 
belief in the power of rain making is one of the most deeply 
rooted articles of faith in this country. The chief Sechele 
was himself a noted rain-doctor, and he often assured me that 
he found it more difficult to give up this superstition than 
anything else that Christianity required him to abjure. The 
Bakwains believed that I had bound Sechele with some 
magic spell, and I received deputations of the old counselors, 
entreating me to allow him to make only a few showers. 
< The corn will die if you refuse, and we shall become scat- 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



27 



terecl. Only let him make rain this once, and we shall all, 
men, women, and children, come to the school, and sing and 
pray as long as yon please.' . . . The Bak wains still 
went on treating ns with kindness, and I am not aware of 
ever having had an enemy in the tribe ; but as they believed 
that there must be some connection between the presence of 
' God's Word ' in their town, and these successive droughts, 
they looked with no good-will at the church-bell. 6 We like 
you ' said the uncle of Sechele, a very influential and sensible 
person, 6 as well as if you had been born among us ; you are 
the only white man we can become familiar with ; but we wish 
you to give up that everlasting preaching and praying ; we 
cannot become familiar with that at all. You see we never 
get rain, while these tribes who never pray as we do 
obtain abundance. ' " 

Sometimes the attendance at the church services was 
exceedingly small. At one such time, we are told, a bellman 
of a somewhat peculiar order was employed to collect the 
people together. " Up he jumped," continues the narrative, 
"ona sort of platform, and shouted at the top of his voice, 
' Knock that woman down over there. Strike her, she is 
putting on her pot ! Do you see that one hiding herself ? 
Give her a good blow. There she is — see ! see ! Knock 
her down ! ' All the women ran to the place of meeting in 
no time, for each thought herself meant. But, though a 
most efficient bellman, we did not like to employ him." 

During this period of life in Kolobeng, Livingstone's 
ordinary missionary avocations of preaching, teaching, 
practicing medicine, and working at all manner of trades, 
were interrupted by several long journeys of 400 or 500 miles 
to the north, to visit the country of the Makololo, a large 
tribe, who, as he was told, were very desirious of having a 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



missionary. It was becoming evident that Kolobeng must 
ere long be abandoned. Already the river was dried up, and 
the absence of water, and consequently of food in the gar- 
dens, made it necessary for the men to be often at a dis- 
tance hunting, and for the women to be away collecting 
locusts, so that frequently there was hardly any one to come 
to church or school. If this station, too, had to be abandoned, 
where should Livingstone go next? It had not been his 
intention to remain always with the Bakwains, and it was 
certainly worth while to see if a suitable locality could not 
be found among the Makololo. If the new region were not 
suitable for himself, he might at least find openings for native 
teachers. 

Driven back by fever and other obstacles, iu was only in 
the third attempt that he succeeded in reaching the village 
of the chief of the Makololo, Sebituane. This man was very 
friendly to Livingstone, who thought him the best specimen 
of. a native chief that he had ever met, and he had promised 
to select a suitable locality for a mission station, and would 
probably have used his great influence among his people on 
the right side. But almost immediately after Livingstone's 
arrival, when the way of salvation had been proclaimed to 
him but once, Sebituane was seized with severe inflammation 
of the lungs, and died after a fortnight's illness. Not being 
permitted by the attendants to turn the dying man's thoughts 
to his Father in Heaven, all Livingstone could do was to 
commend his soul to God. 

After several attempts, Dr. Livingstone saw no prospect of 
obtaining a suitable station, and with great reluctance made 
up his mind to retrace his weary way to Kolobeng. But these 
journeys were not wholly useless. While making his first 
journey, he discovered Lake N'gami, for which discovery he 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



29 



received the prize for that year from the Royal Geographical 
Society. The journey which he made so successfully had 
hitherto baffled the best furnished travellers. The president 
of the society frankly ascribed Livingstone's success to the 
influence which he had acquired, as a missionary, among the 
natives. This the explorer himself also thoroughly believed, 
saying that the lake belonged to missionary enterprise. The 
river Zambesi was another of his discoveries at this time. On 
two of these journeys his wife and family accompanied him, 
and were mercifully preserved, though nearly dying on the 
way from the African fever. 

Meantime, amid all his countless labors, Dr. Livingstone's 
mind was constantly busy with the scientific aspects of the 
country, and the great problem of its evangelization. Three 
things appeared to his mind essential to the successful solution 
of this problem, and he urged them constantly upon the 
directors. They were the vigorous pushing forward of the 
work into the interior, the employment of native agency, and 
the establishment of a training-school where such agency 
might be qualified. 

At length it became certain that the tribe of the Bak- 
wains, among whom Livingstone had labored, must seek a 
new home. Added to the lack of rain was the threatening 
attitude of the Boers of the Transvaal, who hated Living- 
stone because of his attempts to christianize the natives, whom 
they regarded as without souls and made only to serve the 
white men, and who were seeking an occasion of quarrel as a 
pretext for breaking up the mission. It was plain that there 
was no hope of the Boers allowing the peaceable instruction 
of the natives at Kolobeng. When Sechele understood this, 
he sent his five children for instruction in all the knowledge 
of the white men to Dr. Moffat, at Kuruman, who kindly 
received them and their attendants into his own family. 



30 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



Should Livingstone then seek some better location with 
this tribe among whom he had been laboring ? His feeling 
in the matter is thus set forth : " If I were to follow my own 
inclinations, they would lead me to settle down quietly with 
the Bakwains, or some other small tribe, and devote some of 
my time to my children, but Providence seems to call me to 
the regions beyond." Friends urge him to remain, aud 
doubtless had he been a man of only ordinary ability he would 
have done so, and in so acting would have done wisely. But 
his is a mind of larger scope. The great unevangelized 
interior of Africa beckons him on with irresistible power, 
and he dares not disobey what is beyond all doubt the call 
of God. 

But this involves separation from his family. He dares 
not take them with him into that perilous fever country, 
while he again seeks a new and healthful site for the loca- 
tion of a mission station. Neither can he leave them alone 
among the natives, for fear of the disastrous influence upon 
his children. There is nothing for them to do but to return 
to England for the present, hoping to rejoin him at the end 
of two years. 

And so they turn their backs upon Kolobeng. Sorrow- 
fully must they have looked for the last time upon that Afri- 
can home ; more sorrowfully still had they but known that 
they were never to be together in a home of their own again ! 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



31 



CHAPTER Y. 

AMONG- THE MAKOLOLO. 

AFTER accompanying his wife and children to the Cape, 
and there with a heavy heart bidding them farewell as 
they sailed for England, Dr. Livingstone turned his attention 
to preparations for a journey of 1,000 miles to the northward. 
In this he had three ends in view. First, the finding of a 
healthful location for a mission in the Barotse country, to 
which he could bring his family. Then as he realized that 
the distance from the Cape was too great to permit communi- 
cation between the coast and the Barotse country by this 
route, he wished to find some passage to the coast, either east 
or west. Besides this, the shadow of the slave-trade was, as 
a new thing, beginning to darken that portion of the land to 
which he was going. In addition to the inhumanity of the 
slave-traffic, Livingstone saw that it would prove an insur- 
mountable barrier in the way of missionary operations, but 
that while it was the only profitable traffic known to the 
natives they would not abandon it. It was of vital impor- 
tance, therefore, to take steps for the introduction of some 
legitimate commerce by which the slave-trade might be sup- 
planted. 

Livingstone left the Cape in June, 1852, but owing to 
many annoying delays, it was September before he reached 
Kuruman. Here the sad news of the attack of the Boers on 
the Bakwains was brought to him by the wife of Sechele, who 
had herself been hidden in a cleft of the rock over which a 
number of the assailants were firing. The tribe of the Bak- 



32 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



wains had already left Kolobeng and found a new home some- 
what to the south. The Boers had come first to the deserted 
station, where they showed their hatred of Livingstone by 
gutting his house, destroying his furniture and whatever they 
could lay their hands on, and tearing in pieces his precious 
books and journals. Then they had followed the Bakwains 
to Limaue, where they had arrived on a Saturday evening, 
" spoiling for the fray." They told Sechele that they had 
come to fight because he was getting a too saucy," allowing 
Englishmen to proceed to the north, though they had repeat- 
edly ordered him not to do so. To this the chief replied that 
he could not molest Englishmen, when they had never done 
him any harm, but had always treated him well. Yielding 
to his earnest entreaties that they should not fight upon the 
Sabbath day, the Boers waited until Monday morning before 
beginning their assault. Then they began firing upon the 
town and upon the Bakwains, who made a brave resistance 
all day, but were finally forced to retire on account of having 
no water. Thirty-five Boers and sixty Bakwains were killed 
during the fight. This village and others in the vicinity were 
set on fire by the Boers, the crops of the people burned, and 
their cattle carried off, all without the slightest provocation, 
but out of sheer hatred to the mission, and with the avowed 
determination to kill Livingstone had they found him, as they 
expected to do. Had he been able to carry out his original 
intention of arriving at Kolobeng in August, he would prob- 
ably have lost his life ; or, had he escaped with that, at the 
least all the property that he carried with him for the jour- 
ney would have been seized, and his projected enterprise 
brought to an end. 

Dr. Livingstone did not hesitate to express his righteous 
indignation over the injustice and cruelty of the Boers. For 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE, 



33 



one ordinarily so patient, he had a very large vial of indigna- 
tion which he poured out right heartily when he thought the 
occasion demanded it. The subsequent history of the Trans- 
vaal Republic did much to convince others that he was not 
far wrong as regards the low estimation in Avhich he held 
these "free and independent" Boers. 

As for Livingstone the effect of this outrage was to free 
him from the last local tie. and to give fresh viow to his 
determination to open the country which the Boers were 
trying so hard to shut up. To his brother-in-law he wrote 
that he would open a path through the country, or perish. 

In June, 1853, Livingstone had reached the Makololo 
country. His journal shows how unwearied were his efforts 
to teach the people, though, as was to be expected, they 
received ideas on divine subjects but slowly. All the Afri- 
cans he met were firmly persuaded that they should have a 
future existence, and had also a vague kind of belief in some 
Supreme Being, but this was all, and as in our case at home, 
nothing less than the instructions and example of many 
years could be depended upon to secure their moral elevation. 
" TTe introduce,'' he writes, /'entirely new motives, and were 
these not perfectly adapted for the human mind and heart 
by their divine Author, we should have no success. . . . 
AVe can afford to work in faith, for Omnipotence is pledged 
to fulfil the promise. . . . Our. work and its fruits are 
cumulative : we work towards another state of things. Future 
missionaries will be rewarded by conversions for every ser- 
mon. TVe are their pioneers and helpers. Let them not 
forget the watchmen of the night — us, who worked when 
all was gloom, and no evidence of success in the way of con- 
version cheered our paths. They will doubtless have more 
light than we ; but Ave served our Master earnestly, and pro- 
claimed the same gospel as they will do, 55 



34 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



In his endeavors to find a healthful locality Livingstone 
penetrated to the farthest limit of the Barotse country, but 
no such place as he sought could be found. Everywhere he 
finds the terrible African fever that had so nearly proved 
fatal to his own family on their previous journeys. Here, 
too, the horrors of the slave-trade haunt and harrow him, 
while he sees heathenism in its most unadulterated forms. 

" During a nine weeks' tour," he says, " I had been in 
closer contact with heathens than I had ever been before ; 
and though all were as kind and attentive to me as possible, 
yet to endure the dancing, roaring, and singing, the jesting, 
grumbling, quarreling and murderings of these children of 
nature, was the severest penance I had yet undergone in the 
course of my missionary duties. I thence derived a more 
intense disgust, of paganism than I had hitherto felt, and 
formed a greatly elevated opinion of the effects of missions 
in the south, among tribes which are reported to have been 
as savage as the Makololo. The benefits which to a casual 
observer may be inappreciable are worth all the money and 
labor that have been expended to produce them." 

With respect to the results already obtained by the labors . 
of missionaries he writes elsewhere : " Having visited Sierra 
Leone and some other parts of the West Coast, as well as a 
great part of South Africa, we were very much gratified by 
the evidences of success which came under our own personal 
observation. The crowds of well-dressed, devout and intel- 
ligent-looking worshipers, in both the west and south, formed 
a wonderful constrast to the same people still in their heathen 
state. At Sierra Leone, Kuruman, and other places, the 
Sunday, for instance, seemed as well observed as it is any- 
where in Scotland." This is certainly more than can be said 
of our own land, though it must make us blush to acknowl- 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVIXG-STOXE. 



35 



edge it. Indeed it is now said that in Sierra Leone there is 
a larger proportion of Christians than in the United States. 

Of course Livingstone, travelling about from place to place 
as he did, was not cheered by such results as these which could 
only follow many years of seed-sowing ; but amid all his 
difficulties, he patiently pursued his work as missionary, 
preaching twice every Sunday, generally to good audiences, 
sometimes to as many as a thousand. Sometimes he was 
greatly in hopes that a real impression had been made, but 
he was continually met, by the notion that the Christian 
religion was a religion of medicines, and that all the good it 
could do was by charms. 

"The great difficulty" — to quote again from his journals 
— "in dealing with these people is to make the subject plain. 
The minds of the auditors can not be understood by one who 
has not mingled much with them. They readily pray for 
the forgiveness of sin, and then sin again ; confess the evil of 
it, and there the matter ends. " 

Sometimes, too, Livingstone experienced the disadvantage 
of having to speak through an interpreter. It was easy 
enough to carry on communication on all ordinary matters 
through the medium of a third person, but when it came to 
the exposition of religious truth, in which the interpreter 
took little or no interest, it was "'uncommonly slow work. " 
Some, indeed, began to pray to Jesus in secret as soon as they 
heard of the white man's God, but with little comprehension 
of what they were doing. Many, however, kept to the 
determination not to believe, like certain villagers in the south, 
who put all then 1 cocks to death because they seemed to crow 
the words " Tlang lo rapeleng " — " Come along to prayers." 



36 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ACKOSS THE CONTINENT. 



OME of Dr. Livingstone's friends thought that he should 



have settled somewhere, preaching the simple gospel, 
and seeing conversions as the result of each sermon." To his 
father and other friends he writes in September, 1853 : " The 
conversion of a few, however valuable their souls may be, can 
not be put into the scale against the knowledge of the truth 
spread over the whole country. In this I do and will exult. As 
in India, we are doomed to perpetual disappointment ; but the 
knowledge of Christ spreads over the masses. We are like 
voices crying in the wilderness; we prepare the way for the glor- 
ious future in which missionaries telling the same tale of love 
will convert by every sermon. I am trying now to establish 
the Lord's kingdom in a region wider by far than Scotland. 
Fever seems to forbid, but I shall work for the glory of 
Christ's kingdom — fever or no fever." 

Having been completely baffled in his search for a health- 
ful location for mission work, Livingstone now turns his 
thoughts to the second object he has had in view, and 
endeavors to find a highway to the sea, pushing forward to 
the west coast. The probability of his falling by the way 
is ever before him, but, as he often says, " Cannot the love of 
Christ carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the 
trader?" So with a band of Makololo, the best natives 
with whom he ever travelled, he plunges boldly into the 
unknown country. 

Yet even the best natives Livingstone finds ready to sue- 




LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



37 



ciimb to every trouble, and weak and helpless except as he 
infuses his own strength and courage into them. Of physical 
strength he himself had but little. During this terrible 
journey of seven months, from l\ovember 1853 to June 1854, 
he had thirty-one attacks of intermittent fever. The story of 
incredible hardships, sickness, hunger, const ant wading t hrough 
swollen streams, tedious delays, and harassing exactions of 
hostile tribes has been thrilhngly told in Livingstone's first 
published Travels which made his name a household word in 
England and America. 

When at last he reached the Portuguese settlement of St. 
Paul de Loancla on the coast, it was as a skeleton clothed in 
tatters, and he was soon prostrated by a long and distressing 
illness. But even this trial had its alleviations. He speaks 
of the delightful sensation of resting on a comfortable bed 
after so many months of lying upon the ground. The kind 
attentions of the Portuguese traders and others were also 
refreshing to the soul of the weary and lonely explorer. 

When he had once more regained his strength he might 
have set sail immediately for England and his wife and 
children. The two years of absence had gone by, and great 
must have been the temptation to go to them at once. But 
he had promised the natives who had accompanied him that 
he would bring them back to their homes, and he knew that 
they were quite unable to perform that formidable journey 
without him. Besides, he had not yet accomplished his 
object. He had found no safe locality for a mission, nor any 
practicable highway to the sea. So once more he plunged into 
the wilderness, and with a repetition of his former hardships, 
and far more loss of time, brought his followers back to their 
homes. 

It was his earnest desire to bring them all safely home, and 



38 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



in point of fact the whole twenty-seven returned in good health, 
notwithstanding all the perils of the way, owing largely, 
doubtless, to his careful oversight. No wonder that his fol- 
lowers had an extraordinary regard for him. Once when 
crossing a river the ox he was riding threw him off into the 
water, and at once about twenty of his men made a simul- 
taneous rush for his rescue, and their joy at his safety was 
very great. 

On his way back to the Barotse country Livingstone had 
a severe attack of rheumatic fever. " I got it by sleeping in 
the wet," he says. " There was no help for it. Every part 
of a plain was flooded ankle deep. We got soaked by going 
on, and sodden if we stood still." The rain was often so 
drenching that he had to put his watch under his arm-pit to 
keep it dry. His bed was on the wet grass with only a horse- 
cloth between to keep off a little of the dampness. " It is 
true that I suffered severely from fever," he writes again, 
" but my experience cannot be taken as a fair criterion in the 
matter. Compelled to sleep on the damp ground month 
after month, exposed to drenching showers, and getting the 
lower extremities wetted two or three times every day, living 
on manioc roots and meal, and exposed during many hours 
each day to the direct rays of the sun with the thermometer 
standing above 96° in the shade — these constitute a more 
pitiful hygiene than any succeeding missionaries will have to 
endure." 

As they near the home of most of his followers matters 
brighten, and he writes : " Our progress down the Barotse 
valley was quite an ovation ; the people were wonderfully 
kind, and every village gave us an ox and sometimes two. I 
felt most deeply grateful, and tried to benefit them in the 
only way I could, by imparting the knowledge of that 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



39 



Savior who alone can comfort them in the time of need, and 
of that good Spirit who alone can instruct them, and lead 
them into his kingdom." On arriving at their journey's end, 
a day of thanksgiving was observed. (July 23d, 1855.) 

After a few months of rest, months in which, however, 
he did not fail to work and pray for the salvation of those 
about him, Livingstone set out once more on his weary 
way, — this time to the east coast, which seemed to promise 
better than the west. He followed the course of the Zam- 
besi river, discovering the wonderful Yictoria Falls, like a 
second Niagara, but grander and more astonishing. Two 
subjects that occupied much of his thoughts on these long 
journeys were the configuration of the country, and the best 
way of conducting missions and bringing the Africans to 
Christ. 

On this journey he was often in extreme danger from the 
natives, but his trust in the Lord never faltered. " Travelling 
from day to day among barbarians," he himself says — and 
it is the universal testimony of those who have tried it — 
" exerts a most benumbing effect on the religious feelings of 
the soul," but his private journals show that through all the 
obstacles and trials that beset him he stood firmly upon the 
Rock, Christ Jesus. 

When in imminent peril at the confluence of the Zambesi 
and Loangwa, he writes in his journal January 14, 1856 : 
" Thank God for His great mercies thus far. How soon I 
may be called to stand before Him, my righteous Judge. I 
know not. All hearts are in His hands, and merciful and 
gracious is the Lord our God. O Jesus, grant me resignation 
to Thy will, and entire reliajice on Thy powerful hand. On 
Thy word alone I lean. But wilt Thou permit me to plead 
for Africa? The cause is Thine. What an impulse will be 



40 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



given to the idea that Africa is not open if I perish now ! 
See,' O Lord, how the heathen rise up against me as they did 
to Thy Son. I commit my way unto Thee ; I trust also in 
Thee that Thou wilt direct my steps. Thou givest wisdom 
liberally to all who ask Thee — give it to me, my Father. 
My family is Thine. They are in the best hands. Oh ! be 
gracious, and all our sins do Thou blot out. 

' A guilty, weak and helpless worm 
On Thy kind arms I fall.' 

Leave me not, forsake me not. I cast nryself and all my 
cares down at Thy feet. Thou knowest all I need, for time 
and for eternity." 

At this time he had just made the discovery of two 
healthy ridges at the mouth of the Loangwa, which had given 
him new hope for missions and commerce ; hence the special 
earnestness with which he pleads that if the Lord will he 
may be spared still longer to do his work. He was anxious 
that others should know of his success in at last finding a 
healthful locality, and cherished the earnest hope that the 
directors would establish a mission there. 

When he finally reached Quilimane, another Portuguese 
settlement on the east coast, in May, 1856, a few days less 
than four years from the time of his leaving the Cape had 
elapsed. In this time he had crossed the entire continent — 
a feat never before accomplished by a European — and that 
amid hardships and dangers to which all but the bravest and 
most persevering would have inevitably succumbed. That 
his wonderful success as an explorer had not been unrecog- 
nized is shown in the fact that in May, 1855, the Geograph- 
ical Society had awarded him their gold medal — the highest 
honor they had to bestow. 

The Astronomer-royal at the Cape, Mr. Maclear, had said 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



41 



of him : " He has done that which few other travellers in 
Africa can boast of : he has fixed his geographical points with 
very great accuracy, and yet he is only a poor missionary." 
But now as Dr. Livingstone once more emerges into civilized 
regions, he finds himself no longer the obscure missionary, 
but the world-renowned discoverer. 

Let us not imagine, however, that he had lost anything 
of his missionary spirit in the zeal of the explorer. All 
through these journeys he had constantly preached the gos- 
pel to the various tribes through whose countries he passed. 
Even when too ill to hold his usual Sabbath services he would 
make use of a magic lantern, with pictures of Scripture scenes. 
He could thus convey important truths in a way particularly 
attractive to his rude audiences. Before he set out on this 
journey he wrote to his father: " I am a missionary, heart 
and soul. God had an only Son, and he was a missionary 
and a physician. A poor, poor imitation of Him I am, or 
wish to be. In this service I hope to live ; in it I wish to 
die." And a sentence penned toward the close of his journey 
shows with what spirit it had been carried through. " Viewed 
in relation to my calling," he writes, "the end of the geo- 
graphical feat is only the beginning of the enterprise." 



42 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



CHAPTER VII. 



FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 



HILE still at Quilimane a communication received from 



V V the London Missionary Society disturbed Livingstone 
not a little. It informed him that the financial circumstances 
of the society were such that it could not venture to undertake 
untried any remote and difficult fields of labor. The Doctor 
naturally understood this to mean that his proposals were 
declined. He replied to the society's agent at Cape Town 
that he had thought that his preaching, conversation and 
travel were as nearly connected with the spread of the gospel 
as the Boers would allow them to be. His plan of opening 
up a path from either the east or the west coast had received 
the formal approbation of the directors, and in carrying it 
out he felt that he was doing good service to the cause of Christ. 
Seven times had he been in peril of his life from savage men, 
while laboriously pursuing that plan and never doubting that 
he was in the path of duty. He closes thus : " I shall not 
boast of what I have done ; but the wonderful mercy I have 
received will constrain me to follow out the work in spite of 
the veto of the Board. If it is according to the will of God, 
means will be provided from other quarters." 

Now at last Livingstone felt that he might revisit " dear old 
England," and after a long and perilous voyage he once more 
joyfully greeted his wife and children. But his joy was mingled 
with sadness, for the loved father whom he also longed to see 
was no more upon earth. "While his son was on his way home 
he had departed " full of faith and peace." " You wished so 




LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



43 



much to see David," said his daughter to him as the end drew 
near. " Ay, very much, very much ; but the Avill of the Lord 
be done." Then after a pause, "But I think I'll know 
whatever is worth knowing about him. When you see him, 
tell him I think so." "When Livingstone returned to his 
childhood's home the sight of his father's empty chair deeply 
affected him. One of his sisters writes : " The first evening 
he asked all about his illness and death. One of us remark- 
ing that after he knew he was dying his spirits seemed to rise, 
David burst into tears. At family worship that evening he 
said with deep feeling, " We bless Thee, O Lord, for our 
parents ; we give Thee thanks for the dead who has died in 
the Lord." 

Besides the joy of being welcomed by those who were 
nearest and dearest to him, Dr. Livingstone now found himself 
welcomed to the society of the best and most eminent in the 
land, and the recipient of honors and distinctions innumerable. 
"Traveller, geographer, zoologist, astronomer, missionary, phy- 
sician and mercantile director, did ever man sustain so many 
characters at once? Or did ever man perform the duties 
of each with such pains-taking accuracy, and so great suc- 
cess? " 

Having been urged to gather up the results of his journey 
and give them in the form of a book to the public, a large 
part of the year 1857 was mainly occupied with the labor of 
writing. Although he had ample material in his journals, 
the task of arrangement and transcription was necessarily 
very tedious. In fact Livingstone used to say that he would 
rather cross Africa than write another book! Complaint 
has sometimes been made that so much of this book is occu- 
pied with matters of science, descriptions of plants and 
animals, and geographical inquiries, and so little with what 



44 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



directly concerns the work of the missionary. If the infor- 
mation given and the views expressed on missionary topics 
were all put together they would constitute no insignificant 
contribution to missionary literature. But Livingstone recog- 
nized himself as only a pioneer in missionary enterprise. Prob- 
ably no missionary in Africa had preached to so many blacks, 
but in most cases he had been a sower of seed, and not a 
reaper of harvests. He had indeed been the instrument of 
turning some from darkness to light, but he felt that the 
missionary work of the interior of Africa was yet to be clone. 
By showing the vast fields ripe for the harvest he sought to 
arouse the enthusiasm of Christian people, and lead them to 
take possession of Africa for Christ. He wished to interest 
men of science, men of commerce, men of all sorts in the 
welfare of Africa. He would faithfully record what he 
himself knew, and let others build with his materials. With 
himself always " the end of the geographical feat is only the 
beginning of the enterprise." 

Busy and tired with the labors of authorship as he was, 
this must have been one of the happiest periods of his life. 
Often he worked with his children about him, undisturbedly 
all their noise and play. After the years of loneliness which 
he had passed, their mere presence must have been a satis- 
faction. Often he would walk and romp with them. A 
favorite pastime with him when walking near the woods was 
suddenly to plunge into the underbrush, and set them look- 
ing for him, as people searched for him afterwards when he 
disappeared in Africa, and then as suddenly to reappear from 
some entirely unexpected quarter. 

Through the handsome conduct of his publishers and the 
great success of the Missionary Travels, his book brought 
him a small fortune, of which all that he thought it his duty 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



45 



to reserve for his children was enough to educate them and 
prepare them for their part in life. A large portion of the 
profits went to forward directly the great object to which 
his heart and life had been already given. 

Finding himself in the autumn of 1857 free from his 
labors as an author, Livingstone moved more freely through 
the country, attending meetings and giving addresses. It 
was, however, more from an appreciation of the kindness 
shown him, and a desire to be obliging, than from any wish 
to push himself forward, that he accepted these public invi- 
tations. He was anxious to return to his chosen life-work, 
and he was too modest a man to enjoy the lionizing which he 
so frequently received. But as long as the opportunity was 
given him he was glad to strive to arouse an interest in the 
evangelization of Africa, and to speak a word, as opportunity 
offered, for his Master. 

It was in this year that he took a step which has often 
been severely criticised, viz., the severing of his connection 
with the London Missionary Society. Yet this was a thor- 
oughly conscientious step, taken because he felt that God had 
called him to be a pioneer in the work of opening the conti- 
nent of Africa, which might seem to many to be too remote 
from the immediate office of a missionary to warrant his 
receiving a salary from funds contributed solely for that work. 
He therefore thought it best to accept a position tendered 
him as consul, with government salary, at Quilimane, for the 
eastern coast and a portion of the interior of Africa, and also 
as commander of an expedition for exploring the eastern and 
central portions of the country. Yet while making these 
arrangements, he closed an impressive address at Cambridge 
with these words, following an earnest appeal that many of 
his hearers should enter upon missionary work themselves: 



46 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



" If you knew the satisfaction of performing a duty as 
well as the gratitude to God which the missionary must 
always feel in being chosen for so noble and sacred a calling, 
you would have no hesitation in embracing it. For my own 
part I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed 
me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have 
made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be 
called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of 
a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay % 
. . . Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger now and then, 
with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities 
of this life may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver, 
and the soul to sink ; but let this only be for a moment. Ah 
these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall 
hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. 
Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great 
sacrifice which He made who left His Father's throne on high 
to give Himself for us ; ' who being the brightness of that 
Father's glory, and the express image of His person, and 
upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had 
by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of 
the Majesty on high.' ... I beg to direct your attention 
to Africa ; I know that in a few years I shall be cut off in 
that country which is now open ; do not let it be shut again ! 
I go back to Africa to make an open path for commerce and 
Christianity ; do you carry out the work which I have begun. 

I LEAVE IT WITH YOU ! " 

In another address he says : " For my own part I go out 
as a missionary. . . . My object in Africa is not only 
the elevation of man, but that the country might be so 
opened that man might see the need of his soul's salvation." 
These words need no commentary. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



47 



Livingstone's visit to England, though comparatively 
short, taken in connection with his previous labors, had 
effected quite a revolution of ideas in regard to Africa. Men 
were surprised to find that instead of a great sandy desert it 
was so rich and productive a land. The impression had been 
quite general that the blacks were brutish and ferocious in a 
marked degree, but Livingstone showed, as Moffat had shown 
before him, that, rightly dealt with, they were teachable, 
affectionate, and the possessors of many good qualities. On 
the slave-trade of the interior he had already thrown a 
ghastly light, though in his later journeys he was still more 
impressed by its enormities. He had thrown light also on 
the structure of Africa, marking down his discoveries upon 
its map with the greatest accuracy. He had made appeals, 
too, in the cause of missions, with the effect of arousing con- 
siderable interest in them. 

As for himself his heart yearned after his friends, the 
Makololo, and he would gladly have been their missionary, 
but as duty called him elsewhere he made an arrangement 
with his brother-in-law, Mr. John Moffat 3 to become their 
missionary instead, giving him an outfit and salary for five 
years out of his own private means. An amount was thus 
pledged and paid nearly equal to all the salary which he 
received as consul during three years. 



48 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINOrSTQ.NEt 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

EXPEDITION TO THE ZAMBESI. 

DE. LIVINGSTONE had told his faithful followers in 
Africa that nothing but death should prevent his return- 
ing to them, and he kept his word. In March, 1858, with his 
beloved wife, his youngest son, and the members of the expe- 
dition, he set sail from Liverpool. The steamer also carried 
the sections of a steam-launch, called Ma Robert, from Mrs. 
Livingstone's African name, meaning the mother of Eobert, 
the eldest son. This boat it was hoped would be of the 
greatest use in the exploration of the Zambesi and its tribu- 
taries. Now at last the future seemed to open brightly 
before him. Ample funds were at his disposal, as well as a 
force adequate to all the demands of such an expedition. 
Instead of wearily tramping over the country he now had a 
little steamer to carry him where he liked, and last, but not 
least, his wife hoped not to leave him again. 

But these bright hopes were not to be all realized. His 
first great disappointment occurred when on arriving at Cape 
Town the poor health of Mrs. Livingstone prevented her 
accompanying him further. She accordingly went to her 
parents at Kuruman, hoping at some future time to rejoin 
her husband on the Zambesi. 

At first the expedition prospered in spite of some draw- 
backs. The remainder of 1858 and almost all of 1859 were 
occupied in exploring the Zambesi and its tributary, the 
Shire. The discovery of the beautiful Lake Nyassa took 
place in September, 1859. From the very first, Livingstone 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVIXGSTOXE. 



49 



saw the importance of this lake and the Shire valley as the 
key to Central Africa. Since then it has been more and 
more evident that his opinion was correct. He thought 
mnch of the desirability of a British colony, and if twenty 
or thirty families from among the Scotch or English poor 
would come out as an experiment, he was ready to give 
£2000 towards the enterprise, without saying from whom the 
assistance came. He felt that the surest way to discourage 
the trade in slaves was to develop the trade in cotton, and 
that Christian families would do more to promote the cause 
of Christ among the natives than solitary missionaries could 
do. The configuration of the Shire valley is particularly 
favorable for colonization, three broad plateaus rising from 
the river, one above another, to the height of 5,000 feet. As 
to the fertility of the land, the statement was made in 1887 
that while of three coffee plants taken out to the Shire hills 
eight years before from the Edinburgh. Botanic Gardens only 
one had survived, the fruits of that one had already amounted 
to seventy bags of many hundred weight, and of the finest 
growth. " The culture is a commercial success," says the 
organ of the present Universities' Mission, " and should 
result in time in covering all the hills and plateaus around 
the lake with this best foe of the slave-trade, and best sub- 
stitute for the fast disappearing ivory/' 

But to go back to our expedition, the Ma Robert, which 
had promised so well at first, soon disappointed them greatly. 
Her consumption of coal was enormous, the furnace had to 
be started hours before the steam was serviceable, she 
snorted so horribly that she was called " The Asthmatic," 
and, after all, canoes could easily pass her when she was 
making her utmost speed. Dr. Livingstone was greatly 
mortified to find that he had been deceived. He had 
4 



50 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE 



thought that he was getting a great bargain, because the 
ship-builder had professed to do so much through "love of 
the cause." 

We can have little idea of the trials of such an expedi- 
tion even at its best. Now the heat and the mosquitoes, the 
delays, the stoppages on sandbanks, the almost incredible 
struggle for fuel — Livingstone writes that it took all hands 
a day and a half to cut one day's fuel — the monotony of 
existence, the malarious climate, the frequent attacks of ill- 
ness, all had a most trying effect; " Very curious," writes 
Livingstone, "are the effects of African fever on certain 
minds. Cheerfulness vanishes, and the whole mental horizon 
is overcast Avith black clouds of gloom. The liveliest joke 
cannot provoke even the semblance of a smile. Nothing is 
right ; nothing pleases the fever-stricken victim." 

The commander had difficulties also in managing his own 
countrymen which he did not have with the natives. He 
was so conscientious, so thoroughly in earnest himself, that 
he could endure nothing that seemed like kifling with duty. 

Travelling, even in a civilized country and surrounded by 
all the conveniences and even luxuries at the service of the 
modern tourist, is said to be peculiarly apt to bring out the 
disagreeable traits in one's character. But those who con- 
tinued to enjoy his friendship never wearied of speaking of 
Livingstone's delightful qualities as a companion in travel, 
and of the warm sunshine which he had the faculty of 
spreading about him. 

It is not often that Dr. Livingstone speaks of the deli- 
cacies of his table, but once on this trip so novel a dish is 
served up that he has to tell us about it. 

" June, 1859. "We had been very abundantly supplied 
with first-rate stores, but we were unfortunate enougl? t** 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



51 



lose a considerable portion of them, and had now to bear 
the privation as best we could. On the way down we pur- 
chased a few gigantic cabbages and pumpkins at a native 
village below Mazaro. Our dinners had usually consisted of 
but a single course, but we were surprised the next day by 
our black cook from Sierra Leone bearing in a second course. 
' What have you got there V was asked in wonder. £ A tart, 
sir.' < A tart ! Of what is it made V 4 Of cabbages, sir.' As 
we had no sugar, and could not ' make believe ' as in the days 
of boyhood, we did not enjoy the feast that Tom's genius 
had prepared." 

Wherever he goes Dr. Livingstone studies the trees, plants 
and fruits of the region with a view to commerce. He is no 
less interested to watch the treatment of fever when cases 
occur, and is gratified to observe the efficacy of medicines of 
his own preparation. 

Once he has an escape from a rhinoceros as remarkable as 
that from the Hon. The animal came dashing at him, and 
suddenly stopped from some unknown reason when close to 
him, giving him time to escape. Apparently the unwonted 
sight of a white man had filled the beast with astonishment, 
and quite destroyed his presence of mind. 

Coming among his old friends, the Makololo, in 1860, their 
expressions of kindness and confidence greatly touched him. 
But this confidence was wholly the result of his way of treat- 
ing them. "It ought never to be forgotten," says he, "that 
influence among the heathen can be acquired only by patient 
continuance in well-doing, and that good manners are as 
necessary among barbarians as among the civilized." Such 
was his theory, and such no less his practice. He, too, could 
have confidence in them, as appears from the fact that he 
found on his return to Linyanti that the wagons and other 



52 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



articles which he had left there seven years before had been 
untouched, save by the weather and the white ants. 

While among these people Livingstone labored unwea- 
riedly for their spiritual good. The last subject on which he 
preached to them at this time was the great resurrection. 
They told him that they could not believe it possible that the 
particles of the body should ever be reunited. Dr. Living- 
stone gave them in reply a chemical illustration, and then 
referred to the authority of the Book from which the doc- 
trine was derived ; and the poor people were more willing to 
give in to the authority of the Bible than to the chemical 
illustration. Here, as always, the reference to the truth of 
the Bible and its Author seemed to have far more influence 
over the native mind than any cleverness of illustration, 
though that doubtless, too, had a certain weight of its own. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



53 



CHAPTER IX. 

DEATH OF MRS. LIVINGSTONE. 

AT THE beginning of 1861 a new steamer, the Pioneer, 
arrived, which, though not altogether satisfactory, was 
yet a great improvement on the Ma Robert, which was now 
totally useless. This boat was given by the English govern- 
ment for the navigation of the Zambesi and Shire, and it car- 
ried the sections of the Lady Nyassa, designed to float on 
the waters of Lake JNTyassa, and bought by Livingstone at the 
cost of £6,000, the greater part of the profits of his book. 

During this year he explored the Eiver Rovuma, and 
assisted Bishop Mackenzie and his co-laborers to establish the 
Universities' Mission on the Shire, organized in response to a 
personal appeal from Livingstone to the English universities. 
The bishop was a man after Livingstone's own heart, and the 
mission was opened with the brightest hopes of success, 
doomed, alas, to speedy disappointment. This mission was ere 
long virtually, though not absolutely, broken up by the death 
of Bishop Mackenzie and several of his most efficient co- 
workers. This was a terrible blow to Dr. Livingstone, but it 
was followed by one still heavier, the death of his wife. 

Early in January, 1862, Livingstone's wife was once more 
at his side, after an absence of four years. After returning 
to her children in Scotland, where she spent a year of great 
loneliness and depression, and intense longing for her husband, 
she had come back to Africa and rejoined him on the little 
steamer on the Zambesi, with bright plans for a happy home 
on the Nyassa. 



54 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



Only three short months, however, were they together 
before his wife was taken from him. After an illness of a 
few days only, her spirit passed away, and the man who had 
faced calmly so many deaths, and braved so many dangers, 
knelt by her death-bed utterly broken down, and weeping 
like a child. 

Livingstone says little in his next book, The Zambesi and 
its Tributaries, of the death of his wife. He cannot publish 
to the world the deepest feelings of his heart, but his jour- 
nals give us some inkling of what he suffered in her loss. 
" It is the first heavy stroke I have suffered, and quite takes 
away my strength. I wept over her who well deserved many 
tears. I loved her when I married her, and the longer I lived 
with her I loved her the more. God pity the poor children, 
who were all tenderly attached to her; and I am left alone in 
the world by one whom I felt to be a part of myself. I hope 
it may, by divine grace, lead me to realize heaven as my 
home, and that she has but preceded me in the journey, Oh, 
my Mary, my Mary ! how often we have longed for a quiet 
home since you and I were cast adrift at Kolobeng. Surely 
the removal by a kind Father who knoweth our frame means 
that He rewarded you by taking you to the best home, the 
eternal one in the heavens. . . . For the first time in my 
life I feel willing to die." 

In a letter written two days after Mrs. Livingstone's death 
he says : " This heavy stroke quite takes the heart out of me. 
. . . I try to bend to the blow as from our heavenly 
Father. . . I shall do my duty ; but it is with a darkened 
horizon that I set about it." 

A pleasant little glimpse of home life is given in a later 
entry in his journal : " The loss of my ever dear Mary lies 
like a heavy weight on my heart. In our intercourse in 



LIFE OF DAYID LIVINGSTONE. 



55 



private there was often more than what would be tnought by 
some a decorous amount of merriment and play. I said to 
her a few days before her fatal illness : 6 We old bodies 
ought now to be more sober, and not play so much. ' 6 Oh 
no,' said she, 6 you must always be as playful as you have 
always been. I would not like you to be as grave as some 
folks I have seen.' This when I know her prayer was that 
she might be spared to be a help and comfort to me in my 
great work, led me to feel what I have always believed to be 
the true way, to let the head grow wise, but keep the heart 
always young and playful. She was ready and anxious to 
work, but has been called away to serve God in a higher 
sphere." 

The days after his wife's death were spent by Dr. Living- 
stone in writing fully to his children and family friends in 
regard to his great loss. His letter to his wife's mother, 
Mrs. Moffat, reached her at Kuruman by way of England. 
The sad tidings first came to her through traders, but before 
the news came she had written a long letter to her daughter, 
full of joy and gratitude that she and her husband had been 
permitted to meet again, and full of bright hopes for their 
future. For a whole month before this letter was written 
poor Mary had been sleeping under the baobab tree at Shu- 
panga ! 

It is sad to read that, in addition to ail their other trials, 
Livingstone and his wife had not been able to escape the 
tongue of slander. In his letter to his mother-in-law is this 
allusion : "I regret, as there are always regrets after one's 
loved ones are gone, that the slander, which unfortunately 
reached her ears from missionary gossips and others, had an 
influence on me in allowing her to come before we were 
fairly on Lake Nyassa. A doctor of divinity said, when her 



50 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



devotion to her family was praised : ' Oh, she is no good ; she 
is here because her husband cannot live without her.' The 
last day will tell another tale." 

Mrs. Moffat in her reply says : "As for the cruel scandal 
that seems to have hurt you both so much, those who said it 
did not know you as a couple. In all our intercourse with 
you, we never had a doubt as to your being comfortable 
together. I know there are some maudlin ladies who insinu- 
ate when a man leaves his family frequently, no matter how 
noble is his object, that he is not comfortable at home. But 
we can afford to smile at this and say : ' The day will declare 
it.' " 

To his daughter Agnes, after the account of her mother's 
death Livingstone writes : " Dear Nannie, she often thought 
of you, and when once from the violence of the disease she 
was delirious, she called out ; ' See, Agnes is falling down a 
precipice. ' May our Heavenly Savior, who must be your 
father and guide, preserve you from falling into the gulf of 
sin over the precipice of temptation. . . Dear Agnes, I 
feel alone in the world now, and what will the poor dear baby 
do without her mamma ? She often spoke of her and sometimes 
burst into a flood of tears, just as I now do in taking up and 
arranging the things left by my beloved partner of eighteen 
years. . . I bow to the divine hand that chastens me. 
God grant that I may learn the lesson He means to teach ! 
All she told you to do she now enforces, as if beckoning from 
heaven. Nannie dear, meet her there. Don't lose the crown 
of joy she now wears, and the Lord be gracious to you in all 
things. . , I pity you on receiving this ; but it is the Lord. 
Your sorrowing and lonely father." 

Letters of like tenor were written to every intimate 
friend. Livingstone's heart seemed to find relief in pouring 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVIXGSTOXE. 



57 



itself out in praise of her whom he loved so dearly, and whom 
he should see no more on earth. How he must have yearned 
iu this time of desolation for the comfort of the human 
sympathy, the clasp of the loving hands, of those dear to him, 
thousands of miles away. But He who alone can give true 
comfort, and who is just as near to His followers in the 
jungles of Africa as in the peaceful homes of England and 
America, gave him His peace, and courage to keep on his 
way, lonely yet undaunted, " faint yet pursuing." 



58 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE SLAVE-TRADE. 

IT could not have been easy for Dr. Livingstone to take 
up his work again, but how he was able to do it at all 
may be inferred from these words, written at the time to his 
friend, Rev. Mr. Waller, of the Universities' Mission: 
" Thanks for your kind sympathy. In return, I say, cherish 
exalted thoughts of the great work you have undertaken. 
It is a work which, if faithful, you will look back on with 
satisfaction while the eternal ages roll on their everlasting 
course. The devil will do all he can to hinder you by efforts 
from without and from within, but remember Him who is 
with you, and will be with you alway." 

As soon as he was able to brace himself for his work, he 
undertook the task of helping to put the Lady Nyassa 
together, and to launch her. This was achieved about the 
last of June, 1862, to the great astonishment of the natives, 
who could not comprehend how iron should float. This was 
an excellent steamboat, and could she have been got to the 
lake would have done well. But unhappily the rainy season 
had passed, and this could not now be accomplished until 
December. Here was another great disappointment. In the 
meantime Livingstone again took up the explorations in 
which he had been engaged when he went with Bishop 
Mackenzie to help him settle. He hoped to find a water-way 
to ISTyassa beyond the dominion of the Portuguese, but 
failed. It appeared best to reach the lake by the Zambesi 
and Shire, but it was not until early in 1863 that they were 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



59 



able to renew the ascent of these rivers, with the Lady 
Nyassa in tow. 

Dr. Livingstone had seen from the very outset the neces- 
sity of securing the cooperation of the Portuguese, who 
were in possession of the coast at the mouth of the Zambesi, 
and he had succeeded in obtaining from the king of Portu- 
gal the amplest assurances of sympathy and aid. Public 
instructions had been given to all Portuguese officials in 
Africa that all needful help should be given him. The actual 
policy of these officials was, however, quite the reverse of 
this, and they seemed bent upon thwarting in every possible 
way his noble endeavors to suppress that infamous traffic 
which brought them their wealth. Still more than this, it 
seemed as if his labors, instead of suppressing this terrible 
slave-trade, were actually helping it forward. As fast as he 
opened up the country slave-traders followed in his track, 
sometimes gaining the confidence of the unsuspecting natives 
by saying that they were Livingstone's children ! 

Now as the exploring party ascended the river the deso- 
lation was heart-breaking. Corpses floated past them in such 
numbers that the paddle-wheels had to be cleared from them 
every morning. " Wherever we took a walk, human skele- 
tons were seen in every direction, and it was painfully inter- 
esting to observe the different postures in which the poor 
wretches had breathed their last. . . Many had ended 
their misery under shady trees, others under projecting crags 
in the hills, while others lay in their huts with closed doors, 
which when opened disclosed the mouldering corpse with the 
poor rags around the loins, the skull fallen olf the pillow, the 
little skeleton of the child, that had perished first, rolled up 
in a mat between two large skeletons. The sight of this 
desert, but eighteen months ago a well-peopled valley, now 



60 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



literally strewn with human bones, forced the conviction 
upon us that the destruction of human life in the middle 
passage, however great, constitutes but a small portion of the 
waste, and made us feel that unless the slave-trade — that 
monster iniquity which has so long brooded over Africa — is 
put down, lawful commerce cannot be established." 

At first Dr. Livingstone had been somewhat inclined to 
think that the enormities of the slave-trade were sometimes 
exaggerated. Now he was convinced that they were 
" beyond exaggeration." 

Sometimes he was able to set the captives free, as on the 
journey to Loan da, which was begun by a blessed act of 
humanity, as he boldly summoned a trader to release a band 
of captives, so that eighteen souls were restored to freedom 
who else would have been miserable slaves. On another 
occasion, also previous to this time, he and his companions 
had rescued a slave-party of manacled men, women and chil- 
dren. Each man had his neck in the fork of a stout 
stick six or seven feet long, and kept in by an iron rod riveted 
at both ends across the throat. With a saw one by one the 
men were sawed out into freedom. Many of the party were 
children about five years old or even less. Two women had 
been shot the day before for attempting to untie the thongs, 
in order that the rest might be intimidated; one woman had 
had her infant's brains knocked out because she could not 
carry both it and her load, and a man was despatched with 
an axe because he had broken down with fatigue. Eighty- 
four, chiefly women and children, were set free ; and on 
being told that they might go where they pleased, or remain 
with their liberators, they all chose to stay ; and the bishop 
wisely attached them to the mission, then just opened, to be 
educated as members of a Christian family. In this way a 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



61 



great difficulty in the establishment of a mission was over- 
come, for years are usually required to instil such confidence 
into the natives' minds as to induce them — in any large 
numbers at least — to submit to the guidance of strangers. 

But while the release of slaves on their way to the coast 
was sometimes effected, more frequently either it could not 
be accomplished, or it was felt to be unwise, as the helpless 
victims of the slave-agent were likely, if rescued, to fall again 
into his pitiless hands, when their last state would inevitably 
be worse than their first. 

A few extracts from Livingstone's books, The Zambesi 
and its Tributaries and the Last Journals, will give added 
reason for his intense feeling on this subject : - 

" The assertion has been risked, because no one was in a 
condition to deny it, that the slave-trade was like any other 
branch of commerce, subject to the law of supply and 
demand, and that therefore it ought to be free. From what 
we have seen, it involves so much of murder in it as an essen- 
tial element, that it can scarcely be allowed to remain in the 
catalogue of commerce, any more than garroting, thuggee, 
or piracy." 

"June 26th, 1866. — We passed a slave woman shot or 
stabbed through the body, and lying on the path. It was 
said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in 
anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she 
was unable to walk any longer." 

" June 27th. — To-day we came upon a man dead from 
starvation, as he was very thin. One of our men wandered 
and found a number of slaves with slave-sticks on, abandoned 
by their master for want of food. They were too weak to 
be able to speak or say where they had come from ; some 
were quite young." 



62 



LIFE OF DAYID LIVINGSTONE. 



' Not more than one in five ever reach the 6 kind masters ' 
in Cuba and elsewhere, whom, according to slave-owners' 
interpretation of Scripture, Providence intended for them." 

" We had a long discussion about the slave-trade. The 
Arabs have told the chief that our object in capturing slaves 
is to get them into our own possession and make them of our 
own religion. The evils which we have seen, the skulls, the 
ruined villages, the numbers who perish on the way to the 
coast and on the sea, the wholesale murders committed by 
the Waiyau to build up Arab villages elsewhere — these 
things Mukate often tried to turn off with a laugh, but our 
remarks are safely lodged in many hearts. Next day, as we 
went along, our guides spontaneously delivered their sub- 
stance to the different villages along our route. ... It 
is but little we can do ; but we lodge a protest in the heart 
against a vile system, and time may ripen it. Their great 
argument is : ' What could we do without Arab cloth ? ' My 
answer is : 6 Do what you did before the Arabs came into the 
country.' At the present rate of destruction of population, 
the whole country will soon be a desert." 

" The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems 
really to be broken-heartedness, and it attacks free men who 
have been captured and made slaves. Speaking with many 
who died from it, they ascribed their only pain to the heart, 
and placed the hand correctly on the spot, though many 
think that the organ stands high up under the breast-bone 
Some slavers expressed surprise to me that they should die, 
seeing they had plenty to eat and no work. ... It 
seems to be really broken hearts of which they die." 

Dr. Livingstone's servants afterwards said in answer to 
questions, that the sufferings of these captives were terrible. 
Many died because it was impossible for them to carry a 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



63 



burden on the head while marching in the heavy yoke, which 
weighs usually from thirty to forty pounds. Children for a 
time would keep up with wonderful endurance ; but some- 
times the sound of dancing and the merry tinkle of the small 
drums would fall on their ears in passing near to a village ; 
then the memory of home and happy days proved too much 
for them ; they cried and sobbed, the " broken heart " came 
on, and they rapidly sank. The adults, as a rule, never had 
been slaves before, and were so now only through treachery. 
The Arabs would often promise a present to villagers if they 
would act as guides to some distant point. As soon as they 
were far enough from their friends, they were seized and 
pinned into the slave-sticks, or yokes, from which there was 
no escapee These poor fellows would die, as stated above, 
talking to the last of their wives and children, who would 
never know what became of them. 

Much more might be quoted in regard to this fearful 
traffic in humanity, but one more extract will suffice : 
" When endeavoring to give some account of the slave-trade 
of East Africa, it was necessary to keep far within the truth, 
in order not to be thought guilty of exaggeration, but, in 
sober seriousness, the subject does not admit of exaggeration. 
To overdraw its evils is a simple impossibility. The sights I 
have seen, though common incidents of the traffic, are so 
nauseous that I always strive to drive them from memory. 
In the case of most disagreeable recollections I can succeed, 
in time, in consigning them to oblivion ; but the slavery 
scenes come back unbidden, and make me start up at night, 
horrified by their vividness." 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



CHAPTER XL 

RECALL, AND LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND. 

DR. LIVINGSTONE'S heart was saddened also by the 
further news from the mission that several more of 
the missionaries had succumbed to the African fever. Of 
his own party some were so reduced by illness that they had 
to return to England, and now there were but two Europeans 
in it besides himself. We do not need to dwell on the noble 
spirit shown by Livingstone in remaining in the country in 
loneliness and sorrow, amid such appalling scenes as every- 
where met him. Llis devotion to duty in spite of every obsta- 
cle, speaks for itself. 

At the Murchison cataracts the Lady JVyassa was taken 
to pieces, while the party began to construct a road around 
the thirty-five or forty miles of the rapids, in order to convey 
the steamer to the lake. But before this work was completed 
Livingstone received a dispatch from Earl Russell, recalling 
the expedition. Of course this was a great disappointment, 
though not altogether a surprise. The reasons given for the 
recall of the expedition were that, though not through any 
fault of Dr. Livingstone's, it had not accomplished the objects 
for which it had been designed, and that it had proved much 
more costly than had been originally expected. Perhaps, 
too, the government felt that its remonstrances with the 
Portuguese government were of no avail, and that their rela- 
tions were becoming too uncomfortable. 

It was unfortunate that this recall should have occurred 
before Livingstone had been able to place the steamer, on 



LIFE OF DAVFD LIVIXGSTOXE. 



65 



which he had spent half his fortune, on Lake Xyassa. He 
had hoped that the British government would at least par- 
tially reimburse him for this outlay, but it was never done. 

At no previous time had Livingstone been so completely 
hemmed in by discouragements as now. The expedition had 
been recalled, and his hopes of seeing the Lady Nyassa float- 
ing on the waters of the lake had been brought to an end ; 
he had been grievously afflicted in the death of Bishop Mac- 
kenzie and his associates, and had received a still more crush- 
ing blow in the loss of his wife : disease had wasted and 
depressed him ; he had had disappointments and delays with- 
out number, and apparently all his efforts to do good had 
been turned to evil. But. undeterred by all these troubles, he 
resolved to take the last opportunity of exploring the banks 
of the Nyassa, even if it could only be by the wearisome pro- 
cess of " trudge-trudging." ^VThy should he not go home, 
and seek in the companionship of his children and friends the 
comfort and the rest that he needed \ A single sentence in a 
letter to a friend, written while the recall was only in con- 
templation, explains why : " In my case duty would not lead 
me home, and home, therefore. I would not go.*' 

So, with a small company of attendants. Livingstone sets 
out to visit the northern end of the lake, and if possible, to 
reach Lake Moero. of which he had heard as lying at some 
distance to the west. But this object he is unable to accom- 
plish, as they are detained by illness, and he has not sufficient 
time at his disposal, the strict orders of government being 
that he must get the Pioneer down to the sea while the river 
is in flood. A month or six weeks more would have enabled 
him to finish his researches, but he does not dare to take the 
risk. On reaching the vessel, however, in Xovember, 1S63, 
he finds, to his intense chagrin, that two months have to be 
5 



66 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



spent waiting for the floocL As usual, though, he endeavors 
to make the best of an unpleasant situation. " The first fort- 
night after our return to the ship," he writes, " was employed 
in the delightful process of resting, to appreciate which a man 
must have gone through great exertions. In our case the 
muscles of the limbs were as hard as boards, and not an ounce 
of fat existed on any part of the body." 

While waiting here he received a letter from Bishop 
Tozer, the successor of Bishop Mackenzie at the mission, 
telling him that he had resolved to abandon the station, and 
transfer operations to Zanzibar. Against this Livingstone 
protested, but without avail, and thus, for his lifetime, ended 
the Universities' Mission on the Shire, with all the bright 
hopes which it had inspired. This, he writes, he feels much 
more than the recall of the expedition. When he thinks of 
it, it seems as if he must " sit down and cry." Notwithstand- 
ing all that has been said against it, he believes that the 
climate is a favorable one for mission enterprise, and he 
would himself go and plant the gospel there were he only 
younger. He believes that it will be done some day without 
fail, though he may not live to see it. How his hopes were 
finally realized we shall see a little farther on. 

When, as Livingstone tells us, his patience was well-nigh 
exhausted, the river rose, and he gladly started down the 
Shire in the Pioneer, with the Lady Wyassa in tow. On 
the way they had at one time to spend the night in a marsh 
where the water was as black as ink, and emitted such an 
odor of sulphuretted hydrogen as to make the air most offen- 
sive. Happily no ill effects followed, though fever was 
feared. The next morning every particle of white paint on 
both ships was so blackened that scrubbing with soap and 
water could not clean it. The brass was all turned to a 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVDsG-STOXE. 



67 



bronze color, and even the iron and ropes had taken on a 
new tint. They tarried in the foul and blackening emana- 
tions from the marsh to receive on board about thirty poor 
orphans, and a few helpless widows, whom Bishop Mackenzie 
had attached to the mission. The bishop had formed a 
little free community in connection with the mission, in 
which all who had been able to support themselves by culti- 
vating the soil had been encouraged to do so ; but now 
that the mission had been given up, these little and helpless 
ones could not be abandoned without casting odium upon the 
English name, and bringing reproach upon the cause of 
Christ, and so they were carried to the Cape and cared for 
there. Mr. E. M. Ballantyne tells us that he found some 
years afterwards among the most efficient teachers in St. 
George's Orphanage, Cape Town, one of these black girls 
named Dauma, whom Bishop Mackenzie had personally 
rescued from the slaves and carried on his shoulders, and 
whom now Doctor Livingstone rescued a second time. 

This experience in the marsh certainly does not give one a 
very favorable impression of the healthfulness of the locality, 
but we must remember that it was the Shire heights that had 
been supposed to be particularly adapted to a mission 
station. From this more bracing climate the missionaries 
had unfortunately been driven by famine to the fertile but 
fever-smitten valley below. 

The work of the mission as carried on at Zanzibar nas been 
chiefly with the great numbers of slaves rescued on the high 
seas by British cruisers. These on being brought back have 
been trained and taught before being sent inland to their 
homes. A great work has been done also in translating the 
Bible into different dialects ; and on the site of the old slave- 
market of Zanzibar, once one of the vilest spots on earth, 



68 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



tnere now stands a fine church, a fitting memorial of what has 
been accomplished. But the desire of Livingstone's heart 
that the blessings of the gospel should be carried to the 
people scattered about Lake Nyassa, as was the original 
purpose of the Mission, Avas at last to be realized, though 
too late for him to behold it except by the eye of faith ; 
unless, indeed, he has been permitted to look down from the 
" heavenly battlements " upon the work which was begun 
under his inspiration. 

In 1876 a settlement was made intheJ^yassa region by a 
missionary and sixty freed slaves from the training-school at 
Zanzibar. Others have since joined him, and besides spread- 
ing a knowledge of the gospel, the mission has done most 
efficient service in checking the slave-traffic, having estab- 
lished a chain of stations along the old slave-trade routes 
from Lake Nyassa to the sea. A missionary steamer on the 
lake proves of constant service. A third branch of the Uni- 
versities' Mission is maintained in the Eovuma district. The 
present force of European workers numbers sixty-two, about 
half of whom are artisans pursuing their several crafts, all, 
however, actuated by the same purpose of consecration to the 
Lord's work. 

On reaching Mozambique the Pioneei* was delivered over 
to the navy, being the property of the English government. 
Doctor Livingstone's plan was now to sail to India and sell 
the Lady Nyassa before returning home. "The Portuguese 
would have bought her to use as a slaver," he wrote in a 
letter to his daughter, " but I would rather see her go down 
to the depths of the Indian Ocean than that." 

His engineer left him for a better situation on reaching 
Zanzibar, so Livingstone had to take charge himself, and to 
navigate his vessel from Zanzibar to Bombay, a distance of 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



69 



2500 miles with a crew of three Europeans and seven natives 
who had never before seen the ocean, and most of whom were 
disabled by illness during the voyage. For forty-five days 
he was on an ocean he had never crossed, for twenty-five of 
which his vessel was becalmed. The voyage was a memor- 
able one, but has been so far eclipsed by the still greater 
wonders performed by the great explorer on land that little 
has been heard of it. 

Upon reaching Bombay he sold his ship for a third of 
what it had cost him, and then sailed for England. So ended 
in disappointment and seeming defeat this third period of his 
African life, 



70 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

SEAECH FOR THE NILE SOUECES. 




R. LIVINGSTONE now feels that his immediate 
efforts must be directed towards rousing such a public 



sentiment against the Portuguese slave-trade that it shall be as 
perilous upon land as English ships have already made it 
upon the ocean. But the hope of obtaining access to the - 
heart of Africa by another route than that of the Portuguese 
settlements is still in his heart, and as soon as possible he will 
return to look for a new route to the interior. 

On arriving in England he spent a year upon his book, 
The Zambesi and its Tributaries. His intention was at first 
merely to write a small volume, a blast of the trumpet against 
the monstrous iniquity of the Portuguese slave-trade, but 
gradually it swelled to a goodly octavo, and embraced the 
history of the Zambesi expedition. The name of Charles 
Livingstone also appears on the title-page, his brother of that 
name having been with him part of the time during this expe- 
dition, and his journals having been made use of in the writ- 
ing of the book. 

Besides this work Dr. Livingstone did not fail to make 
use of such public opportunities as must come to a now 
famous explorer, in pleading for Africa. 

It was the desire of his friend, Sir Koderick Murchison, 
by whom he was greatly influenced, that he should now 
completely lay aside his missionary character, and devote 
himself altogether to the geographical problem of determin- 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



71 



ing the water-sned of the continent, and the true sources of 
the Nile. We can see how Livingstone regarded this propo- 
sition by a significant entry in his journal of January 7th, 
1865 : "Answered Sir Koderiek about going out. • Said I 
could only feel in the way of duty by working as a mis- 
sionary." It did fall in with his intentions, however, to 
explore the region in which be believed the sources of the 
Nile would be found, and he therefore entered into an agree- 
ment with the Geographical Society to undertake, as a part 
of his work, the task of determining the water-shed of 
central Africa. For this he received a grant of £500 from 
the society, another of the same amount from the government, 
and the honor of a Consul's title without salary. For most 
of the expense incidental to so great an undertaking he must 
rely upon his own means, or trust to Providence. 

In June of this year he paid " the last tribute to a dear, 
good mother," helping to lay her in the grave, as she had 
wished he might. 

Before leaving Scotland Livingstone made a little speech 
to some school-children, closing with what had been the 
watch-word of his own life, " Fear God and work hard." 
These were the last public words that he ever uttered in his 
native country. 

Quitting England in the autumn of 1865, he left Zanzi- 
bar to enter Africa for the last time on March 19th, 1866, 
his fifty-third birthday. " I set out on this journey," he 
observes, " with a strong presentiment that I should never 
finish it. The feeling did not interfere with me in reference 
to my duty, but it made me think a great deal of the future 
state, and come to the conclusion that possibly the change 
is not so great as we have usually believed. The appearances 
of Him who is all in all to us were especially human ; and 



72 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



the prophet whom St. John wanted to worship had work to 
do, just as we have, and did it." 

Our explorer chooses, this time, to have no white compan- 
ions, but . takes with him such a retinue of black attendants 
as is necessary for the journey. Eight of them are young 
liberated slaves from the missionary school at ]STassick, near 
Bombay, some of whom displayed such fidelity to their 
master in life and death as to win the admiration of the 
world. But they were supplemented at Zanzibar by Johanna 
men and sepoys, the former of w T hom were thieves, and the 
latter so intolerable that Livingstone soon dismissed them 
altogether, and detachments subsequently sent to him proved 
to be no better. 

The exploring party dived into the depths of the 
unknown continent, and for months nothing was heard of 
them. Finally one of the Johanna men arrived at Zanzibar 
with circumstantial news that Dr. Livingstone had been 
murdered on the shores of Lake Nyassa. Unwilling to go 
any farther with the party, and freely permitted to return, 
he had invented this story to cover his own desertion. 
Although the newspapers were full of obituary notices, the 
report was only half-credited in England, and to relieve the 
suspense a search-party was sent out in quest of him. 
Although not finding Dr. Livingstone, they gained abundant 
evidence that the story was false, and in 1868 letters came 
from the missionary himself, telling of the desertion of the 
Johanna men, and of the discovery of Lakes Moero and 
Bangweolo. 

We may learn something of the trials he experienced, 
and of his life in general in the meantime, by the following 
extracts from the journals which were entrusted to Stanley 
when he left him. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



73 



January 20th, '67, after telling how two of the men had 
deserted, taking what could least be spared, the medicine- 
box, which was undoubtedly thrown away as soon as they 
came to examine their booty, he adds, " I felt as if I had 
now received the sentence of death, like poor Bishop Mack- 
enzie." The bishop had had all his drugs destroyed by the 
upsetting of a canoe in which was his case of medicines, and 
without these had speedily succumbed to the dreaded Afri- 
can fever. In Dr. Livingstone's case also the loss of his 
medicines was probably the beginning of the end, and his 
system lost the wonderful power of recovery it had hitherto 
shown. 

" January 27th. In changing my dress this a. m. I was 
frightened at my own emaciation." 

" April 1st, '67. I am excessively weak ; can not walk 
without tottering, and have constant singing in the head, 
but the Highest will lead me farther. . . . After I had 
been a few days here I had a fit of insensibility, which shows 
the power of fever without medicine. I found myself floun- 
dering outside my hut, and, unable to get in, I tried to lift 
myself from my back by laying hold of two posts at the 
entrance, but when I got nearly upright I let them go, and 
fell back heavily on my head on a box. The boys had seen 
the wretched state I was in, and hung a blanket at the 
entrance of the hut, that no strangers might see my help- 
lessness ; some hours elapsed before I could recognize where 
I was." 

Besides suffering from the loss of his medicine-chest, 
Livingstone was really half-starved. He had no tea, coffee, 
or sugar, and hardly anything to eat except a coarse, taste- 
less kind of African maize, a most unsatisfying food, which 
left him constantly hungry. 



74 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



The two geographical feats of the year 1867 were the 
discovery of Lake Moero, and the first sight oi Lake Tan- 
ganyika. In 1868 he thus quietly records the discovery of 
Lake Bangweolo. " On the 18th of July I walked a little 
way out, and saw the shores of the lake for the first time, 
thankful that I had come safely hither." 

New Year's day, 1869, found Livingstone laboring under 
a more severe attack of illness than any he had heretofore 
experienced. 

Six weeks of pneumonia left evils behind from which he 
never fully recovered. So ill was he that he completely lost 
count of the days of the week and month. Writing of this 
experience, he says : " I saw myself lying dead in the way 
to Ujiji. . . . When I think of my children the lines 
ring through my head perpetually : 

" I shall look into your faces, 
And listen to what you say ; 
And be often very near you, 
When you think I'm far away." 

In addition to his other trials, it happened again and 
again, that after wearily marching scores, or even hundreds 
of miles to reach new supplies ordered from the coast, it 
was only to find his stores broken open by the faithless 
natives, his goods scattered far and wide, and even his letters 
lost. Truly in such circumstances one had need of an almost 
infinite patience, but patient, quiet endurance was one of 
Livingstone's strong points. 

Then to all this must be added the trial of hope deferred, 
as repeatedly the key to the problem he was endeavoring 
to solve seemed to be almost within reach, only to elude him 
after all. Perhaps if he had foreseen the difficulties of the 
enterprise, he might not have deemed it worth the price it 



LIFE OF DAVID UVIXOST0XE. 



75 



cost; but he had given his promise to the Geographical 
Society, and, as we have seen, he was a man not easily daunt- 
ed. Moreover he had a strong impression that if he could 
only find the real sources of the Xile, he could acquire such 
influence that new weight would be given to his pleadings 
for Africa. 

"Wherever he went, he had some opportunities to make 
known God's love as manifested in His only Son, although the 
seed sown seemed seldom to take root. He was also con- 
stantly gaining fresh information in regard to the country 
and the slave-trade. 

Five weary years from 1866 to 1871 were thus spent 'in 
traversing back and forth the basins of Lakes Xyassa, Tan- 
ganyika, Moero and Bangweolo, one year after another being 
begun with the pathetic prayer that this year he might be per- 
mitted to finish his task and go home. Many difficulties 
surrounded him ; massacres and atrocities were of frequent 
occurrence ; the Arab slave-dealers thwarted him whenever 
it was possible ; his feet were lacerated by the hard march, 
and his strength exhausted by frequent attacks of illness. 
Once he lay for eighty days in his hut. unable to proceed 
further, harrowed by the wickedness about him which he 
could not prevent, thinking about the sources of the Nile, 
getting information from the natives, striving to do some 
good among the people, and reading the Bible. He read it 
through four times in about a year, while in the Manyuema 
country. Little or no news from England arrived to cheer 
him. Once he received a solitary letter ; forty had been lost 
on the way ! 

And now comes the crowning disappointment, which has 
been well likened to that which Moses must have felt when 
looking from Mt. Eebo upon the promised land he was not 
permitted to enter. Dr. Livingstone had now come to the 



Y6 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



Lualaba, which he hoped might be the Nile, although he fear- 
ed it might be the Congo, as we now know it to be. A voy- 
age down this river would settle the question. It would fin- 
ish his task, and then at last he might go home ; but here his 
men mutinied and refused to go further. All his patience 
and gentleness failed to have any effect upon them, and there 
was nothing to do but to retrace his weary way in much 
suffering and bodily weakness over five hundred miles to 
TJjiji. _ 

This journey was a most wretched one. Amid the wide 
spread desolation caused by the slave-traders, it was impos- 
sible for Livingstone to make the natives understand that he 
did not belong to the same set. Ambushes were set in the 
forest for him and his company. Three times in one day did 
Livingstone escape impending death. Twice spears were 
thrown, once grazing his neck, the second time falling but 
a foot away. A large tree to which fire had been applied for 
the purpose of felling it, also came down within a yard of 
him. 

The one offset to the disappointment of returning to TJjiji, 
was Dr. Livingstone's confident expectation that he should 
there find fresh supplies, and the medicine he so much needed. 
Arrived at last at Ujiji, " a mere ruckle of bones/' as he him- 
self says, he finds that once more his supplies have all been 
plundered and sold. The wretch, Shereef, an Arab trader 
to whom they had been consigned, had sold off the whole, 
not leaving a single yard of calico out of 3000, or one string of 
beads out of 700 pounds. He excused himself by saying that 
he had divined on the Koran, and found out that Living- 
stone was dead, and therefore would need his goods no more. 
The poor traveller had indeed fallen among thieves, and it 
seemed as if there were none to come to his relief. But, never- 
theless, help was coming to him even now. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



77 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

MEETING- WITH STANLEY. 

"TV "TOT many days after Livingstone's arrival at Ujiji, while 
1 \| he was still resting and striving to rally his strength 
and the splendid courage which even now was only stag- 
gered, not broken, Henry M. Stanley, who had been sent 
to look for him by Mr. J. G-. Bennett of the New York 
Herald, appeared, ''almost as an angel from heaven." This 
was on the tenth of November, 1871, by Stanley's reckoning, 
though somewhat earlier by Livingstone's. What comfort 
and refreshment did the lonely and disappointed explorer 
now find in the ample supplies, the bag of letters, the sight 
of a white face, and the welcome accents of his mother- 
tongue ! 

Neither Mr. Stanley nor Mr. Bennett had any personal 
interest in Dr. Livingstone. Mr. Bennett frankly admitted 
that it was only in the interests of his paper, and as a jour- 
nalist, that he had sent out the expedition in search of the 
great missionary traveller. But Mr. Stanley, at least, soon 
felt that he had a personal regard toward his new-found 
friend. As for Livingstone, he kept saying : " You have 
brought me new life — you have brought me new life." So 
indeed it proved. Four meals a day of nourishing food, in 
contrast to his heretofore scanty and almost tasteless fare, 
brought back strength to his frame and flesh to his bones. 
But who can estimate the mental stimulus, the sense of com- 
panionship, that Stanley's coming brought him after his long 
and solitary wanderings in the wilderness ? 



78 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



Dr. Livingstone writes in his journal : " I felt in my des- 
titution as if I were the man who went down from Jeru- 
salem to Jericho, and fell among thieves ; but I could not 
hope for Priest, Levite, or good Samaritan to come by on 
either side. . . . But when my spirits were at their 
lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for 
one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed, and 
gasped out, 'An Englishman ! I see him ! ' and off he darted 
to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan 
told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, 
baths of tin, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents, etc., made me 
think, 'This man must be a luxurious trader, and not one 
at his wits' end like me.' It was Henry Moreland Stanley, 
he travelling correspondent of the New York Herald, sent 
by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., at an expense of more than 
£4,000, to obtain accurate information about Dr. Livingstone 
if living, and if dead to bring home my bones. The news 
he had to tell to one who had been two full years without 
any tidings from Europe made my whole frame thrill. The 
terrible fate that had befallen France — the telegraphic 
cables successfully laid in the Atlantic — the election of 
General Grant — the death of good Lord Clarendon, my 
constant friend — the proof that her Majesty's Government 
had not forgotten me in voting £1,000 for supplies, and 
many other points of interest, revived emotions that had 
lain dormant in Manyuema. Appetite returned, and instead 
of the spare, tasteless two meals a day, 1 ate four times 
daily, and in a week began to feel strong. I am not of a 
demonstrative turn — as cold indeed, as we islanders are 
usually reputed to be — but this disinterested kindness of 
Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, 
was simply overwhelming." 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



79 



Again he writes of Stanley : " He laid all he had at my 
service, divided his clothes into two heaps, and pressed one 
heap upon me ; then his medicine chest ; then his goods and 
everything he had, and to coax my appetite often cooked 
dainty dishes with his own hands." 

Mr. Stanley remained with him during the winter, but 
when he returned in March, 1872, he earnestly besought 
Livingstone to go with him, urging that after sufficient 
recuperation in England he might return with renewed 
strength to take up the old problem again. Tempting as 
this proposal was — and no one could have blamed him for a 
moment had he accepted it — much as he must have yearned 
for country, friends and children, he steadfastly refused to 
leave the land until his work was finished. His thorough 
devotion to duty, his utter abandonment of self, were never 
more manifest than now. But a higher ambition than the 
finding out the true sources of the Nile urged him on. If 
his disclosures might but lead to the suppression of the east 
coast slave-trade, that, as he informed his friends, would be 
in his estimation a far greater feat than the discovery of all 
the sources together. 

When at last the time came for the two companions to 
part, it was with the greatest reluctance that they tenderly 
bade each other farewell. Livingstone's appreciation of the 
service clone him by Stanley was justly very great. He had 
proved a true friend to him, bringing him fresh strength and 
courage when almost at death's door, sharing all his comforts 
with him, and helping and cheering him in every way pos- 
sible. It was Stanley on whom he now relied to send him 
trusty attendants; it was Stanley to whom he intrusted his 
journal and other documents. Stanley had been the only 
white man with whom he had talked for six years ; more 



so 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



than that, during the four months that they had been 
together, Stanley had been his confidential friend. 

And what did Stanley think of Livingstone? "God 
grant, " he writes, " that if ever you take to travelling in 
Africa you will get as noble and true a man for your com- 
panion as David Livingstone ! For four months and four 
days I lived with him in the same house, or in the same boat, 
or in the same tent, and I never found a fault in him. I am 
a man of a quick temper, and often without sufficient cause, 
I daresay, have broken the ties of friendship ; but with 
Livingstone I never had cause for resentment, but each day's 
life with him added to my admiration for him." 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



81 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

THE LAST JOURNEY. 1 

DR. LIVINGSTONE had accompanied bis friend to 
Unyamyenibe, where he was to wait until the latter 
should send him supplies and attendants from the coast. 
Here his stay was a somewhat dreary one. He had to wait 
much longer for his goods and men than he had antic- 
ipated, and there was so little to do that it was particularly 
trying for one of his intensely active temperament. Five 
days after Stanley's departure, occurred his fifty-ninth 
birthday, the entry for which day thus appears in his 
journal. 

"March 19th, Birthday. My Jesus, my King, my life, 
my all ; I again dedicate my whole self to Thee. Accept 
me, and grant, gracious Father, that ere this year is gone 
I may finish my task. In Jesus' name I ask it. Amen, so 
let it be. — David Livingstone." 

On the first of May he finished a letter to the New York 
Herald, trying to enlist American zeal to put a stop to the 
east coast slave-trade, and prayed for God's blessing to go 
with the effort. The concluding words of this letter were 
these : " All I can add in my loneliness, is, may Heaven's 
rich blessing come down on every- one, American, English 
or Turk, who will help to heal the open sore of the world." 
It was felt that nothing could better represent the man than 
these words, which have been, consequently, inscribed on the 
tablet erected to his memory near his grave in Westminster 
Abbey. It was not noticed until some time after this selec- 
6 



82 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



tion had been made, that Livingstone wrote it exactly one 
year before his death, which occurred May 1st, 1873. 

Sometimes amid the universal darkness and ignorance 
around him it is hard to believe that Africa shall ever be 
won to Christ, but he strengthens his own faith with such 
words as these, entered in his journal May 13th. 

"He will keep His word — The gracious One, full of 
grace and truth — no doubt of it. He said, ' Him that cometh 
unto me I will in no wise cast out,' and ' Whatsoever ye 
shall ask in my name I will give it.' He will keep His word ; 
then I can come and humbly present my petition, and it will 
be all right. Doubt is here inadmissible, surely. — David 
Livingstone." 

Again, he writes of the way in which to gain the good 
will of the people, and thus secure a foundation for spiritual 
work among them. " June 21st. Nothing brings the 
Africans to place thorough confidence in Europeans, but a 
long course of well doing. . . . Goodness or unsel- 
fishness impresses their minds more than any kind of skill 
or power. They say, ' You have different hearts from ours ; 
all black men's hearts are bad, but yours are good.' The 
prayer to Jesus for a new heart and right spirit at once 
commends itself as appropriate. Music has great influence 
on those who have musical ears, and often leads to con- 
version." 

Then follow such pathetic entries as these : " July 3d. 
Wearisome waiting, this ; and yet the men can not be here 
before the middle or end of next month. I have been sorely 
let and hindered in this journey, but it may have all been 
for the best. I will trust in Him to whom I commit my 
way. 

" July 5th. Weary ! weary ! 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



83 



"July 7th. Waiting wearily here, and hoping that the 
good and loving Father of all may favor me, and help me to 
finish my work quickly and well." 

We also find from his journals that at this time Dr. 
Livingstone's mind was in a state of perpetual doubt and 
perplexity in regard to the Lualaba river, fearing that after 
all it might be the Congo. TTe are almost thankful that lie 
never had his doubts solved, it would have been such a 
disappointment for him to have found for a certainty that 
this great river was not the Kile, even had he also known 
that henceforth it was to be known as the Livingstone river, 
and would perpetuate the memory of his life and labors for 
Africa. 

In a letter to a friend he writes in reference to his 
endeavors to do all in his power towards suppressing the 
slave-trade : " To me it seems to be said, ' If thou forbear to 
deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are 
ready to be slain ; if thou say est, behold we knew it not, 
doth not He that pondereth the heart consider, and He 
that keepeth thy soul, doth He not know, and shall He not 
give to every one according to his works ? ' I have been led, 
unwittingly, into the slaving field of the Banians and Arabs 
in central Africa — I have seen the woes inflicted, and I 
must still work and do all I can to expose and mitigate the 
evils." 

And again: "]\ T o one can estimate the amount of God- 
pleasing good that will be done, if by divine favor this 
awful slave-trade, into the midst of which I have come, be 
abolished. This will be something to have lived for, and the 
conviction has grown in my mind that it was/b/' this end I 
have been detained so loner. " 

His letters to the last show that his desire to discover 



84 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



the sources of the Nile was only as a means of enabling him 
to open his mouth with power among men, and that the 
great desire of his heart was to arouse public feeling against 
the slave-trade, and to get that great hindrance to mission- 
ary effort and good of every kind forever swept away. 
Among the last words that he ever wrote were these : " I 
would forget all my cold, hunger, suffering and trials, if I 
could be the means of putting a stop to this cursed traffic." 

At last Dr. Livingstone's escort arrived, among 
them Jacob Wainwright, who had been educated at the 
Nassick school, and who afterwards accompanied his 
master's body to England, and was one of the pall-bearers at 
the funeral in Westminster Abbey. To him we also owe 
the earliest narrative that appeared of the last eight months 
of Dr. Livingstone's life. This time Livingstone is not 
disappointed in his followers, whom he finds to be both 
faithful and capable. 

It was in August that the party left Unyamyembe, pro- 
ceeding towards Lakes Tanganyika and Bangweolo. Little 
of incident occurred on the first part of the march, but as 
the season advanced, the cold, rainy weather made their pro- 
gress a perpetual struggle. It rained as if nothing but rain 
were. ever known in the water-shed. The path lay across 
flooded rivers and long stretches of spongy marshland, and 
the inhabitants of the regions through which they passed 
often refused them food, and deceived them as to the way. 
Once amass of furious ants attacked Livingstone by night, 
driving him from hut to hut in desperation. 

Most constitutions would have succumbed after a few 
weeks of such exposure, and indeed, there is much sickness 
in the party. As for Livingstone, his sufferings are beyond 
all previous experience, but still he keeps on his way, and 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



85 



keeps his men together, showing an influence over them 
that is simply wonderful. 

On his last birthday, March 19th, 1873, he makes the fol- 
lowing entry in his journal : "Thanks to the Almighty Pre- 
server of men for sparing me thus far on the journey of life ! 
Can I hope for ultimate success ? So many obstacles have 
arisen. Let not Satan prevail over me, oh ! my good Lord 
Jesus." 

And a few days later: "Nothing earthly will make me 
give up my work in despair. I encourage myself in the 
Lord my God and go forward". 

But at last there is a limit to the endurance of even an 
" iron " constitution, although fortified as it was in Living- 
stone's case by an almost indomitable will, and his weakness 
at the beginning of April is pitiful. Still in spite of intense 
pain and bodily weakness he kept on his way, even when so 
exhausted that he had to be carried in a palanquin. The 
country was but a poor one at best, and was now flooded by 
heavy rains, so that even upon so called "dry land " the men 
often had to wade knee-deep in water as they carried their 
master onward. 

On the 27th of April Dr. Livingstone wrote in his journal 
the last words he ever penned: 

"Knocked up and remain — recover — sent to buy milch- 
goats. We are on the banks of the Molilamo.'' 

Almost nothing could be found suited to the sick man's 
needs. Though suffering from intolerable thirst, water fit to 
drink was often unattainable, and the milch-goats were 
sought in vain ; and so they pushed on for a day or two 
longer. 

The word "recover" shows that Livingstone had no 
anticipation of immediate death. It has been observed that 



86 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



such cases of malarial poisoning are usually unattended with 
such expectation, or with such messages to friends and 
expressions of faith as would be natural to Christian men, did 
they realize the near approach of death. But where one is 
ready to go, it matters little how suddenly the messenger 
calls him hence. 

April 29th was the last day of the great explorer's travels 
upon earth, and then he had to be lifted from his hut to the 
palanquin. At last they reached Chitambo's village in Ilala, 
where he had to lie under the eaves of a house in a drizzling 
rain till a hut could be prepared for him. Then he was laid 
on a rude bed in the hut for the night. The next day he 
lay quietly all day, the attendants knowing that death was 
not far off. During the early part of the night following, 
nothing occurred to attract attention, but about four in the 
morning the boy who lay at his door keeping watch called 
in alarm for Susi, one of his old servants, fearing that their 
master was dead. By the light of the candle still burning, 
they saw him kneeling by his bedside as if in the act of 
prayer, his head buried in his hands on the pillow. Praying 
as he went, he had gone on his last journey, and without a 
single attendant. Alone, yet not alone, for He who had sus- 
tained him through so many trials and dangers had gone 
with him through the " swelling of Jordan," and brought 
him safe to the celestial country. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



87 



CHAPTEE XV. 

THE LAST EESTING-PLACE. 

DURING all the trying experiences of this last explora- 
tion, Dr. Livingstone had been cheered by the special 
devotion of two of the attendants, Susi and Chumah, who had 
been with him long and loved him well. Their tenderness 
to him had been like that of a mother to a dying child, and 
now that their master was gone, their fidelity still showed 
itself in the determination that every effort should be made 
to convey his body to Zanzibar. Surely, if anything were 
needed to commend the African race to our sympathy and 
respect, the loyalty, affection and courage now shown by 
all Livingstone's followers might well have this effect. 
Although it involved nine months of hard and perilous 
travel, their resolve was carried out without faltering. The 
ordinary risks of such a journey were by no means small, 
but the superstitious horror of death everywhere prevalent 
now made it dangerous in the extreme. They endeavored 
to keep Chitambo, the chief of the village where Living- 
stone died, in ignorance of his death, fearing lest a ruinous 
fine should be inflicted upon them. The secret, however, 
oozed out, but fortunately the chief was reasonable in his 
demands. 

Susi and Chumah now became the leaders of the com- 
pany, and nobly did they fulfil their task. They first made 
a careful inventory of Dr. Livingstone's personal effects, 
then deposited all his papers and scientific instruments in 



88 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



water-tight boxes, so that they would not be injured in ford- 
ing rivers. Though the later entries in his journal had been 
made only with the juice of plants upon old London news- 
papers, they too, were carefully preserved, so that everything 
reached England in perfect safety. 

Jacob Wainwright was asked to read the English burial 
service, which he did in the presence of all. Then arrange- 
ments were made for drying and embalming the body, the 
heart and other internal organs first having been removed 
and buried. After having been dried in the sun for fourteen 
days, during which time the men took turns in keeping 
watch night and day, the body was wrapped in cloth, the 
legs bent inward at the knees, and the whole enclosed in a 
large piece of bark in the shape of a cylinder. Over this 
again a piece of sail cloth was sewed, and the package was 
lashed to a pole so as to be carried by two men. Jacob 
"Wainwright carved the inscription on the tree where the 
body had rested and under which the heart was buried, and 
Chitambo was charged to keep the grass cleared away, and 
to protect the rude monument, consisting of two posts and a 
cross-piece, which they had erected. 

They then set out on their homeward journey, which was 
made more serious still by the frequent ravages of sickness. 
The tribes through which they passed were as a general 
thing friendly to them, but not always. On one occasion 
there was a regular fight, and at another village the inhabi- 
tants showed so much opposition, that it was resolved to 
pack the remains so as to look exactly like a bale of mer- 
chandise. This having been done, a bundle of mapira stalks, 
cut into lengths of about six feet, was then enveloped in 
cloth, so as to imitate a dead body about to be buried. 
This was sent back along the way they had already tra- 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



89 



versed, as if they had changed their minds and had con- 
cluded to bury the body. As it grew dark the bearers began 
to throw away the stalks and wrappings, and when all were 
disposed of they returned to their companions. The vil- 
lagers' suspicions having been thus allayed, they were suf- 
fered to go on unmolested. 

The party reached Bagamoio with their precious burden 
in February, 1874. Soon after Dr. Livingstone's remains 
were placed on a cruiser bound for Zanzibar, and from thence 
sent on to England, reaching Southampton on the 15th of 
April. 

The latest intelligence that we have had in regard to the 
devoted Susi, is that found in a paper of March, 1887, and 
is very cheering to hear. He had then been recently bap- 
tized by a member of the Universities' Mission, receiving 
the new name of David, in memory of the noble man who 
had first taught him what it was to be a Christian. 

To many it seemed so incredible that the real body of 
Livingstone should have been brought all the distance from 
the heart of Africa to England, that some positive means of 
identification was necessary to put their doubts at rest. This 
was supplied by the false joint in the arm that the lion had 
crushed. High medical authorities who had examined the 
fractured arm years before, certified that there could not be 
a doubt as to these being the remains of " one of the greatest 
men of the human race — David Livingstone." 

On the 18th of April, 1874, the remains of the great 
missionary traveler were committed to their last resting- 
place in Westminster Abbey, where crowds of people listened 
to the impressive funeral services, and joined in the simple 
but touching words of the hymn : 



90 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



O God of Bethel, by whose hand 
Thy people still are fed ; 
"Who through this weary pilgrimage 
Hast all our fathers led ! 



" Oh spread thy covering wings around, 

Till all our wanderings cease, 
And at our Father's loved abode, 

Our souls arrive in peace." 

Many of Livingstone's friends had come to pay their last 
tribute of respect and love ; some who had helped to lay 
" Ma Kobert " in her lonely grave twelve years before ; one 
who had found the long lost missionary, and brought him 
back to life and hope ; one who had himself first read the 
triumphant words of the burial service over the mortal 
remains of his loved and trusted master. All these now 
helped to bear him to his last resting place. And one more 
was there, the aged father of his beloved Mary, the one who 
had been the means under God of bringing him to his life 
work in Africa. Sorrowfully they laid him to rest, and yet 
with rejoicing, for they knew that the good and faithful ser- 
vant had entered into the joy of his Lord. 

" Open the Abbey doors and bear him in 
To sleep with king and statesman, chief and sage, 

The missionary come of weaver kin, 
But great by work that brooks no lower wage. 

" He needs no epitaph to guard a name 
Which men shall prize while worthy work is known ; 

He lived and died for good — be that his fame ; 
Let marble crumble ; this is Living — stone." 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



91 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

ESTIMATE OF HIS LIFE-WOEK. 

"/^i nas ^ a ken away the greatest man of his genera- 
\JT ^ion, f° r L>r. Livingstone stood alone." So wrote 
Florence Nightingale to his sorrowing daughter, and no 
careful reader of his life can fail to recognize in him one 
of the grandest heroes not merely of this, but of any age. 

As a missionary explorer he stood alone, travelling 
29,000 miles in Africa, adding to the known portion of the 
globe about a million square miles, discovering lakes N'gami, 
Shirwa, Nyassa, Moero and Bangweolo, the upper Zambesi 
and many other rivers, and the wonderful Yictoria Falls. 
He was also the first European to traverse the entire length 
of Lake Tanganyika, and to travel over the vast water-shed 
near Lake Bangweolo, and, through no fault of his own, he 
only just missed the information that would have set at rest 
his conjectures as to the Nile sources. He greatly increased 
the knowledge of the geography, fauna and flora of the 
interior, yet never lost sight of the great objects of his life, 
the putting down of the slave-trade, and the evangelization 
of Africa. 

His attainments as a physician were of no mean order. 
The London Lancet, expressing the hearty appreciation of 
the medical profession, says : " Few men have disappeared 
from our ranks more universally deplored, as few have 
served in them with a higher purpose, or shed upon them 
the lustre of a purer devotion." 

During the thirty-three years of Dr. Livingstone's ser- 



92 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



vice for Africa, his labors as a philanthropist and a mission- 
ary were unceasing. Largely as a result of these labors, 
that infamous slave-trade, against which he struck the first 
blow, has now been obliterated along thousands of miles of 
African coast where once it held full sway, and all Christian 
nations have banded together to forbid and punish this 
traffic throughout a vast area in the interior, planting stations 
for 1,500 miles inland for the enforcement of the law. 

As a missionary his immediate success may not have 
appeared great ; he was but a forerunner " preparing the 
way of the Lord." His was the work of the pioneer, blaz- 
ing the way, making the rough places smooth for others to 
follow, opening the country for Christianity to enter in. 
But scarcely had the civilized world learned of his death, 
before, inspired by his example, there began a mighty move- 
ment on behalf of Africa. The first fruits of that last 
dying prayer for the country to which he had given his life 
were seen in the establishment near Lake Eyassa of a mis- 
sion founded by the churches of Scotland, henceforth to be 
known by the name of Livingstonia. As soon as Stanley 
knew that his friend was no more, he resolved to carry on 
his efforts in opening up Africa to civilization. A thousand 
days' journey brought him from Zanzibar to the mouth of 
the Congo, the news of which reaching England, the next 
vessel that sailed for the " dark continent " carried mis- 
sionaries to help enlighten its darkness. Wherever he has 
gone Stanley's explorations have left behind them a line of 
Christian light. Robert Arthington now pours out his 
fortune, giving in ten years over two millions of dollars. 
Missionaries hasten to the interior. All denominations vie 
with each other in Christian zeal. King Leopold, of Bel- 
gium, resolves to " live for Africa." The fruit of this resolve 
is seen in the Congo Free State. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



93 



The statement has been made, and it scarcely seems 
exaggerated, that there is probably no mission field in the 
world that is at present attracting the attention of the 
church at large as much as that of Africa. All eyes turn 
with interest, especially to that wonderful Congo Free State, 
with its rich and vast area, and its population of fifty mil- 
lions of inhabitants, with its express promises of govern- 
ment protection and favor to all religious undertakings, and 
its guarantee to the natives of freedom of conscience and 
religious toleration. True, with all that is encouraging in 
its outlook, the new liquor traffic is threatening its peace 
and prosperity, but already the abhorrence of Christendom 
regarding this death-dealing traffic is making itself felt, and 
we can but believe that this monstrous iniquity will be 
throttled while it is yet in its infancy. 

All through that region of eastern and central Africa in 
which Livingstone spent so many years, and for which he 
uttered so many prayers, new mission stations are being 
planted, the Universities' Mission, the London Missionary 
Society, the Free and Established churches of Scotland, the 
Methodists, Swiss, and other societies all having representa- 
tives there. So great an expansion of missionary enterprise 
could never have taken place in so short a time but for Dr. 
Livingstone's energy in opening Africa, and for his enthus- 
iasm in enlisting recruits for his loved field. 

At a moderate estimate there are now between thirty 
and forty missionary societies working in Africa, and over 
500 missionaries spreading the glad tidings of salvation. 
The converts, though already numbering many tens of 
thousands, are as yet but a handful among the two hundred 
millions with which Africa teems, but their number is 
steadily growing, and when we remember that until a few 



94 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



years ago nothing was known of the vast interior, we have 
reason to thank God and take courage. Soon the continent 
will be crossed by a network of railways, penetrated by 
explorers, settled by traders, and dotted over with Christian 
missions. Already roads are being built and railways con- 
structed, steamboats sail up and down the great lakes and 
rivers, and a submarine cable has been laid. It will not be 
long ere all these millions of inhabitants will be practically 
within the reach of Christian missionaries. 

Was Dr. Livingstone's life then a failure? Was it a 
wasted service, that ended only in defeat as he breathed his 
last in that lonely hut in Ilala ? These few years that have 
elapsed since his death have already seen realized the deep- 
est desires of his heart. Africa is open, the slave-trade is 
condemned, a wonderful impetus has been given to the 
planting of Christian missions, and — the end is not yet. 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



95 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

LIVINGSTONE AS A MAN. 

BUT beyond and above Doctor Livingstone's greatness as 
a missionary, a physician, a philanthropist, and an 
explorer, it is the character of the man that shines out pre- 
eminently great. The rare symmetry of this was such that 
one who knew him bears witness that he was the most 
Christ-like man he ever knew. Another says that she never 
knew any one who gave to her more the idea of power over 
other men, such power as Christ showed while on earth, the 
power of love and purity combined. 

A friend of. his earlier days remarks : " There was truly 
an indescribable charm about him, which, with all his rather 
ungainly ways and by no means winning face, attracted 
almost every one, and which helped him so much in his 
after-wanderings in Africa. He won those who came near 
him by a kind of spell." 

This power lay first of all in his large-heartedness, his 
genuine kindliness and consideration for others, which 
prompted him to be just as courteous, just as Christian let us 
rather say, in his treatment of the poor, ignorant black as in 
that of the most polished and learned European. Few men 
have the ability that he possessed of taking an "all around" 
view of things ; he could look at matters not merely from 
a narrow standpoint of his own, but from the standpoint of 
others also ; he needed far less than most of us, the injunc- 
tion, "put yourself in his place." 

"When a chief has made any inquiries of us," he observes, 



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LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



" we have found that we gave most satisfaction in our 
answers when we tried to fancy ourselves in the position of 
the interrogator, and him that of a poor uneducated fellow- 
country man in England. The polite, respectful way of 
speaking, and behavior of what we call 'a thorough gentle- 
man' almost always secures the friendship and good will of 
the Africans." 

And again he writes to the same effect : "Whether we 
approach the downtrodden victims of the slave-trade in 
sultry Africa, or our poor brethren in the streets who 
have neither warmth, shelter, nor home, we must employ 
the same agency to secure their confidence — the magic 
power of kindness ; a charm which may be said to be one of 
the discoveries of modern days. This charm may not act at 
once, nor may its effects always be permanent, but the feel- 
ings which the severity of their lot has withered will in 
time spring up like the tender grass after rain. " 

One secret of his success in winning the friendship of the 
natives lay in the fact that his kindness to them was marred 
by no spirit of condescension, and that he thoroughly recog- 
nized their manhood. In the rudest black, as well as in the 
most cultivated white man, he saw a brother man, made in 
the image of God, and therefore to be treated with courtesy 
and respect. 

Doctor Livingstone's tact and consideration for the feel- 
ings of others are strikingly shown in his treatment of the 
native doctors. The following extract is taken from his first 
book of travels : " Those doctors who have inherited their 
profession as an heir-loom generally possess some valuable 
knowledge, the result of long observation. The rest are 
usually quacks. With the regular practitioners I always 
remained on the best terms, and refrained from appearing 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVIXGSTONE. 



97 



to doubt their skill in the presence of their patients. Any 
explanation in private was thankfully received, and wrong 
treatment readily changed for more rational methods. 
English drugs were eagerly accepted ; and we always found 
medical knowledge an important aid in convincing the peo- 
ple that we were anxious for their welfare. The surgical 
skill of the natives is at a low ebb. Xo one ever attempted 
to remove a tumor except by external application. A man 
had one on the nape of his neck as large as a child's head. 
Some famous doctor attempted to dissolve it by kindling on 
it a little fire, made of a few small pieces of medicinal roots. 
I removed this tumor, as I did an immense number of others, 
with perfect safety," but "I refrained from attending the sick 
unless their own doctors wished it, or had given up the case. 
This prevented all offense to the native practitioners, and 
limited my services, as I desired, to the severer attacks. " 

Dr. Livingstone showed the same spirit as was in his Mas- 
ter in taking a genuine interest in those about him. Noth- 
ing was too trivial for him to be interested in if it con- 
cerned his brother-man. One or two extracts from his 
journals will suffice here. "As we were sleeping one night 
outside a hut, but near enough to hear what was going on 
within, an anxious mother began to grind her corn about 
two o'clock in the morning. l Ma, J inquired a little girl, 
' why grind in the dark ? ' Mamma advised sleep, and admin- 
istered material for a sweet dream to her darling. ' I grind 
meal to buy a cloth from the strangers which will make you 
look a little lady.' An observer of these primitive races is 
struck continually with such little trivial touches of genuine 
human nature.*' 

Truly "'one touch of nature makes the whole world 
kin." 

7 



98 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



It is rather a minute thing to mention, and it will only 
be understood by those who have children of their own, but 
the cries of the little ones in their infant sorrows are the 
same in tone, at different ages, here as all over the world. 
We have been perpetually reminded of home and family by 
the wailings which were once familiar to parental ears and 
heart, and felt thankful that to the sorrows of childhood 
our children would never have superadded the heart-rending 
woes of the slave-trade." 

Dr. Livingstone's wonderful patience has already been 
spoken of. Under the most trying circumstances he still 
preserved his self-control. Occasionally, as in the case of the 
Boers' unprovoked assault on Kolobeng and Limaue, he 
could find no excuse for those in fault, but generally he was 
quick to see extenuating circumstances. For instance, after 
being deserted by some of his men he says : " I have taken 
all the runaways back again ; after trying the independent 
life, they will behave better. Much of their ill conduct may 
be ascribed to seeing that after the flight of the Johanna 
men I was entirely dependent on them. More enlightened 
people often take advantage of men in similar circumstances; 
though I have seen pure Africans come out generously to 
aid one abandoned to their care. I have faults myself/' 

In another place he speaks of sometimes being ashamed 
when he finds that he has been vexed at the natives without 
cause. Of course they are often stupid, but perhaps no more 
so than servants at home often are, and the conduct of white 
men must frequently appear to them silly or half -insane. 

Another marked trait in Livingstone was his capacity 
for solitude, enabling him to endure an amount of loneliness 
that would have crushed any ordinary man. For, notwith- 
standing his interest in and love for the natives, he must 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



99 



often have felt an inexpressible desire for the companionship 
of those who could understand his motives and who by birth 
and education were fitted to be his intimate associates. His 
keen love of nature, his close habits of observation, must 
have helped him to pass cheerfully through his many lonely 
hours ; but, best of all, he had constantly with him the 
presence of Him who had said, " I will never leave thee nor 
forsake thee." The weary, tread-mill-like march he sa} r s 
was particularly favorable to meditation, and many must 
have been the hours of sweet communion held with his 
Master. 

Dr. Livingstone's courage in exposing himself to danger 
if in the path of duty is no less to be commented on, though 
he himself never speaks of it. Dr. Moffat gives several 
instances as samples of what was habitual to him, only one 
of which we cite. Once, he tells us, when Dr. Livingstone 
was engaged in his special mission- work, a messenger came 
in the greatest haste to solicit his attendance on a native 
who had been attacked in a wood by a rhinoceros, and 
frightfully wounded. Livingstone's friends urged him not 
to take the risk of riding through the woods at night, 
exposed to the rhinoceros and other harmful beasts as he 
was certain to be, telling him that it was sure death to 
venture ; but he felt that it was only a Christian duty to save 
the poor fellow's life if possible, and resolved to go in spite 
of the danger to himself. Starting at once to relieve the 
sufferer he forced his way for ten miles, in midnight dark- 
ness, through tangled brake and thicket, till he reached the 
spot where the wounded man lay, only to find him dead 
But was it a wasted sacrifice ? Was it not rather as the 
sweet ointment spilled out of love to the Lord? 

Although the recipient of prizes, degrees, gold medals 



100 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



and honors of many kinds, Dr. Livingstone still preserved 
an unusually childlike, humble spirit. Once when a great 
man expressed admiration for his wonderful achievements, 
he replied : " They are not wonderful ; it was only what any 
one else could do that had the will." Ah ! but was not such 
a will wonderful 'I What too shall we say of such modesty 
as this? "Men may think I covet fame, but I make it a 
rule jiever to read aught written in my praise." 

One who had known him as a student with Mr. Cecil 
writes : " I might sum up my impression of him in two 
words — Simplicity and Kesolution. ISTow, after nearly 
forty years, I remember his step, the characteristic forward 
tread, firm, simple, resolute, neither fast nor slow, no hurry 
and no dawdle, but which evidently meant — getting there.' 
Simple and resolute Dr. Livingstone was to the last. With' 
childlike trustfulness, combined with equal fearlessness, he 
was able to disarm the fierceness of savage men, where the 
least appearance of timidity might have been fatal. 

His tremendous force of will carried him through dan- 
gers and obstacles before which a weaker nature would have 
quickly succumbed. Once having made up his mind that 
a certain course was the path of duty, nothing could cause 
him to swerve from it. This will-power availed not only for 
himself, but for his followers also, instilling courage and 
devotion to duty into the minds of those who heretofore 
had been weak and irresolute. 

Livingstone's faithfulness to promises has already been 
dwelt upon. Whether made to the Geographical Society, 
or to the poor, helpless, ignorant African, it mattered not. 
Once made, a promise was faithfully carried out. 

The description of the ideal missionary leader, as given 
in one of his own books, is so striking a picture of his own 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



101 



character that we cannot forbear quoting it : " The qualities 
required in a missionary leader are not of the common kind. 
He ought to have physical and moral courage of the highest 
order, and a considerable amount of cultivation and energy, 
balanced by patient determination ; and above all these are 
necessary a calm, Christian zeal, and anxiety for the main 
spiritual results of the work/' Yet this characterization 
does not necessarily give one the idea of such meekness and 
love as, in addition, belonged to our hero. It was the blend- 
ing together of all these qualities that made the so nearly 
perfect man. 

Do we seem to exaggerate ? As Professor Blaikie says 
in his Life of Livingstone, while often eulogiums on the dead 
conceal one half of the truth, and fill the eye with the other 
half, here there is really nothing to conceal. A plain, honest 
statement of the truth regarding him is Livingstone's high- 
est praise. 

Mr. Stanle} r has written very fully of the impression 
that Dr. Livingstone made upon him. Let us listen to him 
once more as he goes still further into details : 

"I grant he is not an angel ; but he approaches to that 
being as near as the nature of a living man will allow. His 
gentleness never forsakes him ; his hopefulness never deserts 
him. No harassing anxieties, distraction of mind, long 
separation from home and kindred, can make him complain. 
He thinks 6 all will come out right at last ; ' he has such 
faith in the goodness of Providence. . . . 

"Another thing that specially attracted m} r attention 
was his wonderfully retentive memory. If we remember 
the many years he has spent in Africa, deprived of books, 
we may well think it an uncommon memory that can recite 
whole poems from Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, 
and Lowell. . . . 



102 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



" His religion is not of the theoretical kind, but it is a 
constant, earnest, sincere practice. ... In him re- 
ligion exhibits its loveliest features : it governs his conduct, 
not only toward his servants, but toward the natives, the 
bigoted Mohammedans, and all who come in contact with 
him. Without it, Livingstone, with his ardent temperament, 
his enthusiasm, his high spirit and courage, must have be- 
come uncompanionable, and a hard master. Religion has 
tamed him, and made him a Christian gentleman ; the crude 
and wilful have been refined and subdued ; religion has 
made him the most companionable of men and indul- 
gent of masters, — a man whose society is pleasurable to a 
degree. From being thwarted and hated in every possible 
way by the Arabs and half-castes, upon his first arrival at 
Ujiji, he has, through his uniform kindness and mild, pleas- 
ant temper, won all hearts. I observed that universal 
respect was paid to him. Even the Mohammedans never 
passed his house without calling to pay their compliments, 
and to say, ' The blessing of God rest on you ! ' . . 
Each Sunday morning he gathers his little flock around him, 
and reads prayers, and a chapter from the Bible, in a natural, 
unaffected, and sincere tone ; and afterwards delivers a short 
address in the Kisawahili language, about the subject read to 
them, which is listened to with evident interest and atten- 
tion." 

The latest words that we have seen from Stanley, tes- 
tifying at once to the native nobility of the African, and to 
the personal influence which Livingstone exerted over him- 
self, are to this effect : " I have been in Africa for seventeen 
years, and I have never met a man who would kill me if I 
folded my hands. "What I wanted and what I have been 
endeavoring to ask for the poor Africans has been the 



LIFE OF DAVID LIYIXG-STOXE. 



103 



good offices of Christians, ever since Livingstone taught 
me during those four months that J was with him. In 1871 
I went to him as prejudiced as the biggest atheist in London. 
I was out there away from a worldly world. I saw this 
solitary old man there, and asked myself, 'TThy on earth 
does he stop here \ ' For months after we met, I found 
myself listening to him, and wondering at the old man's car- 
rying out all that was said in the Bible. Little by little his 
sympathy for others became contagious; mine was awakened; 
seeing his piety, his gentleness, his zeal, his earnestness, and 
how he went quietly about his business, I was converted by 
him, although he had not tried to do it. How sad that the 
good old man died so soon ! how joyful he would have been 
if he could have seen what has since happened there ! " 

A few years ago a missionary travelling in the Eovuma 
country met a native with the relic of an old coat, evidently 
of English manufacture, over his right shoulder. It seemed 
from the man's statement, that ten years before he had trav- 
elled some little distance with a white man who had given 
him the coat. A man whom to have once seen and talked 
to was to remember for life ; a white man who treated black 
men as his brothers, and whose memory would always be 
cherished all through the Eovuma Yalley ; a man, short of 
stature, with bushy mustache and keen, piercing eye, whose 
words and manner were always kind and gentle; a man 
whom as a leader all men were glad to follow; a man who 
knew the way to the hearts of all. 

Many and brilliant have been the eulogiums in which 
the learned and the great have vied with each other to do 
honor to the name of the great explorer ; but among them 
all none touches the heart more deeply than the simple 
tribute of this untutored savage. Like the touching fidelity 



104 



LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 



of the black body-guard who bore his remains safely to the 
sea, it is an earnest and a prophecy of the reverent gratitude 
with which in all coming time the millions of that " dark 
continent," to whose redemption his life was given, will 
cherish the memory of the hero and apostle of Africa, — 
David Livingstone. 



Note. — The material for this sketch has been mainly drawn from Prof. 
Blaikie's "Personal Life of David Livingstone," and from Livingstone's 
three books, " Missionary Travels in South Africa," " The Zambesi and its 
Tributaries," and the " Last Journals." Some information has also been 
derived from missionary periodicals. Liberal quotation has been made 
from Dr. Livingstone's letters and journals, in the belief that his own words 
would best represent the man. 



